What is an abdominal aortic aneurysm? An abdominal aortic aneurysm should not be called an “aneurysm”, it is a localized weakness of the abdominal aorta that expands and bulges outward due to pathological factors, and only resembles an “aneurysm” in appearance, not a tumor in the usual sense, and is therefore a benign disease. Aneurysm has a proper name in English, “aneurysm”, which is a Greek word with the original meaning of “dilatation”. The concept originated from the ancient Greek medical genius Galen (131-200 AD), who described, based on anatomical studies of apes and other animals, that “when an artery dilates, the lesion is called an aneurysm, and if the aneurysm ruptures, a fatal hemorrhage often occurs. When translated into Chinese, the use of the word “aneurysm” has led to misunderstandings among many people. There are many causes of abdominal aortic aneurysms, the most common being hypertension and atherosclerosis, while other causes include trauma, infection and may be congenital. The most common presentation of abdominal aortic aneurysm is a pulsating mass in the upper abdomen or around the umbilicus, sometimes with vague pain or compression of surrounding organs. After the formation of abdominal aortic aneurysm, the aneurysm will gradually expand and enlarge under the impact of arterial blood flow. According to physical principles, the larger the diameter of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, the greater the pressure on the aneurysm wall, and generally speaking, the chance of rupture of an aneurysm larger than 5 cm in diameter increases greatly. The greatest physicist of the 20th century, Albert Einstein, left the world of space and time that he led us to understand again because of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, and the famous geologist in China, Professor Li Siguang, died because of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm. Even in Western literature, writers often arrange for characters who need to suddenly disappear to suffer from abdominal aortic aneurysms. Indeed, abdominal aortic aneurysm is an extremely dangerous disease with high morbidity and mortality. In the United States, death caused by ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm accounts for the tenth cause of death from disease in adult males, and in China, the incidence of aortic aneurysm is also rising rapidly with the aging of the population and the change in the people’s dietary structure. How were abdominal aortic aneurysms treated in the past? Surgical treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms has been attempted by surgeons since the 18th century, but until the advent of artificial blood vessels in the 1950s, many of the surgical methods that were tried failed to achieve a complete cure for abdominal aortic aneurysms, and patients often died from ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms even after receiving treatment, the most vivid example of which is Albert Einstein, who underwent an abdominal aortic aneurysm wrap in 1948 and He unfortunately died of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm in 1955. After the mid-1950s, the emergence of artificial vessels made abdominal aortic aneurysm resection and artificial vessel replacement the classic method for treating abdominal aortic aneurysms. This procedure involves completely dissecting out the aneurysm of the abdominal aorta after general anesthesia, blocking the aorta at both ends of the aneurysm, ligating the branch arteries of the aneurysm and then removing the aneurysm, anastomosing the artificial vessels with the dissected ends of the arteries at both ends of the aneurysm to restore Due to the different sites and volumes of aneurysms, the operation time varies from 2 hours to more than 10 hours, and the blood transfusion volume varies from hundreds to tens of thousands of milliliters, which is very traumatic. Unfortunately, abdominal aortic aneurysm is a geriatric disease, and the average age of onset of abdominal aortic aneurysm is around 70 years old, and most of these patients have different diseases such as hypertension, coronary heart disease, diabetes mellitus, and pulmonary and renal hypofunction, which makes the surgery much more dangerous. This paradox has plagued vascular surgeons and patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms for more than 40 years since the introduction of abdominal aortic aneurysm resection and artificial vessel replacement, often putting physicians and patients in a dilemma. What is abdominal aortic aneurysm endoluminal isolation? This embarrassing situation in the surgical treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms was fundamentally changed after the 1990s with the advent of endoluminal isolation. From the pathological changes of abdominal aortic aneurysm, we can know that abdominal aortic aneurysm is an expansion of abdominal aorta rather than a tumor, so as long as we can prevent the rupture of abdominal aortic aneurysm, we can achieve the purpose of curing abdominal aortic aneurysm without removing it; in the past 20 years, the technology of intracavitary memory alloy stent, ultra-thin polyester woven artificial blood vessel, intravascular catheter, etc. has gradually matured and is increasingly widely used in the clinic; CT, magnetic resonance angiography and other non-invasive vascular examination techniques are becoming increasingly accurate; abdominal aortic aneurysm endoluminal isolation is the product of this intellectual progress combined with numerous technical advances. Simply put, endoluminal isolation of abdominal aortic aneurysms involves first performing imaging examinations such as CT arteriography on patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms to obtain precise data on the abdominal aortic aneurysm, then customizing a composite of memory alloy stent and ultrathin artificial vessel stitches of appropriate caliber and length accordingly, and pre-positioning the cold-shrunk memory alloy stent in the catheter at low temperature. When the artificial vessel reaches the diseased aorta, the artificial vessel is released from the catheter and the memory alloy stent is opened to its original caliber at body temperature, and the artificial vessel is fixed to the normal aorta at both ends of the diseased aorta, and the blood flows through the lumen of the artificial vessel. This maintains the flow of the abdominal aorta and prevents the rupture of the abdominal aortic aneurysm, which means that the abdominal aortic aneurysm is completely cured. In the treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms with endoluminal isolation, bifurcated grafts (metal stents and artificial vascular complexes) are often required because abdominal aortic aneurysms often involve the iliac arteries. Compared to traditional open mega-invasive surgery, endoluminal isolation avoids general anesthesia, opening and blocking the aorta, making the procedure much less invasive and requiring only a small 3-cm incision at the base of the thigh. The operating time is greatly reduced, and a skilled surgeon can complete an operation in 60 minutes, and most patients do not require blood transfusion. Patients recover quickly after surgery and can eat the night of surgery and get out of bed the next day. The complication rate and mortality rate are also significantly reduced, which gives many patients who cannot tolerate traditional surgery due to their advanced age and multiple coexisting diseases a chance to be cured. In addition to the endoluminal isolation procedure we mentioned above for abdominal aortic aneurysms, this technique can also be used to treat thoracic aortic aneurysms, aortic pseudoaneurysms, carotid aneurysms, etc.