Percutaneous balloon-expandable stents for sealing of acute aortic dissection.

Acute aortic dissection is a highly lethal disease. When dissection involves only the descending aorta and there are no ischemic complications, medical management may be the treatment of choice. However, a high risk of expansion or rupture of the dissection remains. When renal or limb ischemic complications do appear, surgery has been the only option, despite high mortality and morbidity. Percutaneous placement of stents for sealing an acute aortic dissection might be an alternative to surgical treatment. We treated 2 patients with acute type B aortic dissection by stent-fixation of the proximal and distal descending aorta. In both patients, there was evidence of persistent flap fixation at midterm follow-up.