Meet with Vascular Surgeon/What Should I Ask

Posted by rnpalarino1 @rnpalarino1, Jun 5 6:56pm

I am a 77 year old male in good health. I have been diagnosed with a 4.8 cm aortic aneurysm. I meet with Johns Hopkins vascular surgery on Monday.
Any recommendations on questions for him? I assume he will want to operate.

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Lara K | @larak | Jun 9 9:38am

I need to ask my surgeon if my annual MRI Angios give any hint as to cause of my ascending aortic aneurysm (right above the heart, before the branched arch) and whether a chest CT might be better for my next scan. MRIs and CTs catch different things.

I guess I would ask your guy to speculate as to cause.

I assume they did standard autoimmune/autoinflammatory bloodwork? ANA, complement proteins, CRP, ESR. At 77, I don't know if they do genetic panel to screen for connective tissue disorders. I'm 54, so they did. But it's a very limited panel and misses a lot of things, like collagen VI disorders.

Depending on where the aneurysm is and whether it remains stable over a year, your surgeon may not suggest surgery yet. For my type of aneurysm, 5 cm (which I'm at) is the new guideline. But my guy still goes by the old 5.5 cm, particularly as mine has been stable for a year and only grew .3 cm in the two years before that.

So I guess I'd ask what is your surgeon's cut-off for determining it's time for surgery.

rnpalarino1 | @rnpalarino1 | Jun 9 5:21pm

Lara:
Very helpful comments. Thank you wand God bless you.
Nick

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