Syphilitic aortitis

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(Redirected from Syphilitic aneurysm) Syphilitic aortitis is a disease of the aorta associated Syphilitic aortitis with the tertiary stage of syphilis infection. SA begins as Classification and external resources inflammation of the adventia, including the vessels that ICD-9 093.1 supply the aorta itself with blood, the vasa vasorum. As it worsens, the vasa vasorum show hyperplastic thickening (http://www.icd9data.com/getICD9Code.ashx? of their walls that restricts blood flow and causes ischemia icd9=093.1) of the outer two-thirds of the aortic wall. Starved for oxygen and nutrients, elastic fibers become patchy and smooth muscle cells necrose. The wall weakens and scars. If the disease progresses, syphilitic aortitis leads to an aortic aneurysm.

Overview
Inflammatory involvement of tertiary syphilis begins at the adventitia of the aortic arch which progressively causes obliterative endarteritis of the vaso vasorum. This then causes narrowing of the lumen of the vaso vasorum, causing ischemic injury of the medial aortic arch and then finally loss of elastic support and dilation of the vessel. Dissection of the aortic arch is rare due to medial scarring. As a result of this advanced disease process, standard methods of angiography/angioplasty may be impossible for those with suspected coronary heart disease but patients are able to undertake diagnostic CT of coronary arteries without physical intervention to coronary arteries. This disorder is also known eponymously as Heller-Dhle syndrome.

References
1. NIH (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000729.htm) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphilitic_aortitis" Categories: Bacterial diseases | Sexually transmitted diseases and infections This page was last modified on 2 March 2011 at 17:55. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.