Secondary procedures in thoracic aorta

Secondary procedures for thoracic aorta are very demanding to the patient, with significantly high perioperative mortality and morbidity. The aim of this paper was to review the most remarkable secondary procedures following open and endorepairs of thoracic aorta. The PubMed database was searched without any year limits. Search terms used %were “thoracic”, “aorta” and “reintervention”. Two authors independently reviewed abstracts identified by the search and subsequently the reference lists of eligible series were scrutinized in order to detect any additional relevant articles. Different early and late complications following open an endovascular repair of thoracic aorta were described adding their incidence and their potential solutions with secondary interventions. Secondary interventions after open repair (OR) are more related to bleeding and progression of the aortic disease issues and open surgery is again the most common solution. However, in more fragile patients with favorable anatomy, endovascular repair can be offered as a secondary procedure. Reinterventions after endovascular treatment of thoracic aorta diseases (TEVAR) are mostly related to endoleaks and also to the aortic disease progression. Hopefully, the oncoming technological improvements together with the optimized operator expertise can reduce the incidence of secondary procedures following TEVAR for all the aortic pathologies.