Stenting an Ascending Aortic Aneurysm under 5

Hello @catwoman07,

I edited your discussion to include the text from your other post rather than a link to it. I did this to help members more easily understand the topic of your post. In your other post, you met @rlhix who mentioned they had their aortic aneurysm operated on before it reached 5cm.

@catwoman07, have you had a conversation with your provider about the possibility of a stent before waiting until it reaches the 5cm threshold?

Hi,
@catwoman07 , I too just got to the 4.0 , 4.1 cm ascending aortic aneurysm. Glad you are an RN and live near main Mayo.
I work w Jax. Mayo, but live in SC. As it has grown since 2019 identified at 3.7.
6 month monitoring and I have not heard of stent process.
I try to keep Blood pressure normal and BMI is good. It’s frightening not to live closer to experts.
Is there a you tube on stenting ?

Per Cleveland Clinic - TEVAR - Researchers are developing new devices
specifically for the ascending aorta. The exciting research shows much
promise. In the future, endovascular methods could repair ascending aorta aneurisms. I am 92 years of age and Cleveland Clinic has suggested in my case, 5 cm, "hybrid" surgery for repair of the ascending aorta aneurism. "Hybrid" meaning partial open due to my age, etc. Advances are being made - will it be soon enough for many of us??

@victoria7
Hi. Thanks for your questions. Unfortunately alive in Michigan and pay to travel to go to Mayo in Rochester. The name of the procedure is TEVAR, and is being done at a number of hospitals. I tried to copy a video link, but the down wouldn't attach. Just Google TEVAR procedure. Good luck

@catwoman07
Great job w the Cleveland Clinic podcast on Spotify . Many topics with a team of surgeons.
TEVA is done in Charleston, SC. Thank you kindly.

@bobjoseph Hi Bob, I am 89.5 and worried for 18 months with an ascending and a aortic root
aneurysm (4.2 & 4.4 respectively) but then two things happened within the same month. First I finally got a cardiologist who said neither aneurysm had grown significantly in 1.5 years. But the second thing was an article in the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) who published a study covering several years and thousands of people with the same aneurysms we have. The astounding thing was that the number of people who did not have surgery and resulted in death was less than 1 %. But the number who had surgery and died was closer to 3%. The study admitted that open heart surgery could be dangerous for those of us who are compromised either due to age or other issues.
I am not a gambler, but that study changed my life. Sixty deaths out of 6K? I'll take those odds over surgery any day. I am back to exercise and enjoying my life again. This is just my story, I am not advocating this position for anyone else. I am just suggesting that aneurysms need not be all gloom and doom.

Please tell me more. I am a 68 year old man with H.O.C.M. and an AAA under 5 centimeters as well.

@dew88
Good stuff thanks.

For me personally, one open heart surgery was enough! I successfully had a septal myectomy performed in 2019. The news of my Easter egg came shortly after the operation. I had an ascending aortic aneurysm. Now in Pennsylvania where I live it was told that the tevlar procedure cannot be done on AAAs. Maybe the technology has finally gotten good enough to perform them. Every check up I tell my cardiologist that I will not be cracked open again, ever!

The conversation usually stops there haha. What are you going to do right? It's a beautiful, sunny day today. I'm going to enjoy it. Thanks for the good words.

@dew88 Enjoyed your response to my comments on possible stenting. Those odds you quote are very interesting - open surgery vs no surgery. Myself, I have "almost" got over the doom and gloom of our medical situation. I live each day according to the recommendations my cardiologist has suggested.......along with this website and the experiences of those of us who comment. I have given up with pounding weights. For exercise I now walk 5 miles a week in an olympic size swimming pool.

Hello....to piggyback onto what @bobjoseph mentioned here, I've attached a link to the JAMA article referenced and also another regarding stats on aortic surgery.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2796795
https://share.google/VPsRL3O5YUwOUqpym
Knowledge is power!!