Thoracic angiography and intervention in trauma

Abstract

Interventional radiologists are involved less often in the initial diagnostic evaluation of patients who have acute chest trauma today than in the past. Patients are cleared of significant injury by CT, or, when a significant injury is present, they are triaged appropriately to open surgery or endovascular intervention. Significant advances in catheter-based technology, such as stent grafts and embolization coils, allow definitive repair of thoracic aortic and branch vessel injury. The opportunity to treat these types of injury with minimally invasive techniques has reinforced a continuing need for the maintenance and continued development of skills in the performance and interpretation of thoracic angiography. This article reviews these techniques and examines the status and the future of endovascular interventions in thoracic trauma.