A case of paraplegia that developed 6 years after thoracic endovascular aortic repair for blunt traumatic aortic injury.

CASE: Thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) is becoming the standard therapy for blunt thoracic aortic injury (BTAI). However, the long-term outcomes of TEVAR for BTAI remain unclear. A 36-year-old man was admitted to our emergency department with dyspnea. He had been involved in a serious traffic accident 6 years earlier, requiring TEVAR for BTAI.

OUTCOME: Acute heart failure and pneumonia were diagnosed on this admission. His respiratory condition improved, but paraplegia developed 10 h after hospitalization. Magnetic resonance imaging showed an intraspinal longitudinal area of signal hyperintensity, and spinal cord infarction was diagnosed.

CONCLUSION

Although the causal relationship between the TEVAR and spinal cord infarction remains unclear, paraplegia as a long-term complication after TEVAR does not appear to have been reported previously, and so represents a potentially important complication.