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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Aorta (Stamford) 2023; 11(06): 174-190
DOI: 10.1055/s-0044-1786352
DOI: 10.1055/s-0044-1786352
State-of-the-Art Review
The Fate of Conventional Elephant Trunk in the Frozen Elephant Trunk Era
Abstract
Conventional elephant trunk (cET) and frozen elephant trunk (FET) are two distinct approaches to the surgical treatment of thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections. With the advent and growing uptake of endovascular technologies, FET is becoming increasingly popular for its potential to be performed as a single-stage operation with better aortic remodeling and less risk of graft kinking than the traditional two-stage cET procedure. However, FET has been associated with a higher risk of spinal cord ischemia and its use in patients with connective tissue disorder remains controversial. The current review aimed to reflect on recent evidence surrounding the application of cET and FET to different types of aortic pathology in both acute and elective settings. Another scope of this review was to compare the characteristics of the currently available FET commercial devices on the global market. Our findings highlight that when the pathology is confined to the proximal descending aorta, such as in Dsine, intervention is often single-staged and false lumen (FL) thrombosis is achieved with good effect. FET remains limited by spinal cord injury and applicability in patients with connective tissue disorder, although some groups have started to circumvent associated complications, likely due to growing surgical expertise. Many other aortic diseases do require second-stage intervention, and even in these cases, there appears to be lower in-hospital mortality when using FET over cET. This is possibly due to the higher rate of endovascular completion facilitated by the completed landing zones created during FET. FET is trending toward becoming the universal treatment modality for extending repair to the descending aorta
Keywords
conventional elephant trunk - frozen elephant trunk - thoracic aorta - aortic dissection - aortic aneurysmAuthors' Contribution
A.G., M.J. and M.T. involved in literature review design, literature search, and manuscript writing. M.B., I.M., and S.H. involved in manuscript revision.
Publication History
Received: 03 May 2022
Accepted: 08 March 2023
Article published online:
16 May 2024
© 2024. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
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