Clinical, imaging and surgical variability of postoperative pseudoaneurysm of the ascending aorta: Report of three cases

Abstract

The postoperative pseudoaneurysms of the ascending aorta present varied clinical symptoms, and range from asymptomatic forms to severe toxic infectious cases or a rupture. They also show diversity with regard to location, time of occurrence after the first surgery and surgical findings. Three cases of patients who underwent surgery at the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery of the Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital over a four-year period are reported. The first case is that of a patient who underwent atrial septal defect surgery and days after the surgical closure presented with a fever. The second case was a patient who was diagnosed with pseudoaneurysm three months after an aortic valve replacement surgery, with the only antecedent of repeated febrile episodes; and the third is a patient who had undergone aortic coarctation surgery and the following year underwent aortic valve replacement, then, 17 years later, presented with chest pain, fatigue and loss of consciousness. The postoperative aortic pseudoaneurysms are a challenge for all cardiology and cardiovascular surgery departments as they show a great variety in their forms of clinical-surgical presentation.