Cardiac Remodelling Following Thoracic Endovascular Aortic Repair for Descending Aortic Aneurysms

Thoracic stentgrafts are stiffer than the aorta. To understand how this mismatch might affect the left ventricle, van Bakel and colleagues quantified the left ventricular remodeling after thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) in 8 patients. They estimated an increase in left ventricular stroke work and found an increase in left ventricular mass after TEVAR. The authors conclude that compliant endografts should be developed to prevent adverse left ventricular remodeling after TEVAR.