The cardiovascular diseases

ANEURYSM OF THE ABDOMINAL AORTA

- Definition
- A few explanations
- The symptoms
- What does the physician notice?
- How to make the diagnosis?
- Once the diagnosis made, an operative check-up is required
- Complications
- The causes
- Clinical shape, Evolution, Prognosis
- Treatment, Conclusion

THE SYMPTOMS

1 - Typical symptoms

The most typical discovery circumstance is the one of the symptomatic patient. But the significant latency of the aneurysms of the abdominal aorta and the few specific symptoms presented do not immediately steer to a vascular pathology.

Indeed, the symptoms can be:

- Digestive: abdominal meteorism,atypical pains...

- Rheumatologic: lumbar pains

- Urologic: difficulty to urinate

- Vascular: difficulty to walk because of an embolism in an artery of the legs.

The general state is generally perfectly conserved.

2 - Atypical symptoms

Currently, the diagnosis of aneurysm of the abdominal aorta is often based on a radiographic exam if the aneurysm is calcified, or on the occasion of an ultrasound implemented for another reason.

Sometimes, a difficulty walking can evoke an embolism of a piece of the aorta in an artery of the lower members.

3 - The complication

The prerupture or “fissure”.

The major sign of a prerupture is the pain found at the level of the beating mass in the abdomen. Facing this case, the hospitalisation in vascular surgery unit is necessary.

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File last reviewed on dec 18, 2011