A Patient with A Ruptured Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Was Treated by A Multidisciplinary Team of Our Hospital

An abdominal aortic aneurysm is not a “tumor” in the usual sense, but it is more dangerous than any other malignant tumor. A ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm is like a flat tire on the highway. Once ruptured, even if the patient receives timely surgery, the mortality rate would get close to 50%. Recently, the Cardiac and Vascular Surgery Department of our hospital, with the assistance of  the Emergency and Critical Care Department, Anesthesiology Department, Blood Transfusion Department, Operating Room Nursing Team and other teams, treated a patient with a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm with “endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair(EVAR)”. Due to the great amount of bleeding in the preoperative period, the patient’s hemoglobin was only 44 g/L before the surgery, and the estimated bleeding volume was 2500-3000 ml, accounting for about 70% of the whole blood volume. After the surgery, under the careful treatment of the cardiac and macrovascular surgery team, the patient was taken off the ventilator on the fifth day and is now recovering well.

Abdominal aortic aneurysm is almost asymptomatic in its early stage, but after the aneurysm increases to a certain extent, nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite and other symptoms may appear. Some non-obese people with obviously enlarged aneurysm may feel the pulsating mass in the abdomen. The high-risk group for abdominal aortic aneurysm is men over 60 years old who are long-term smokers and have atherosclerosis or hypertension.

Control of blood pressure and atherosclerosis can slow the growth of the aneurysm, but no drug can effectively reduce the size of the aneurysm. Traditional surgery uses artificial vessel replacement, which is more traumatic and is rarely used at present. Nowadays, endoluminal repair surgery is widely used, which is either performed through small 125px incisions on both sides of the groin or directly under the puncture.