Thoracic aortic disease is an infrequently encountered condition of which the true prevalence and incidence is hard to establish. New thoracic aortic aneurysms are estimated to be present in 5-16/100.000 inhabitants in the USA and Sweden and seem to increase in prevalence. Probably this increase is largely due to improved diagnostics and ascertainment. In the USA aortic aneurysms were 19th in rank in the 2007 mortality statistics and constituted 0.5% of all deaths. In the Netherlands 1302 people were registered as having died due to aneurysms and dissections of the aorta in 2010. This is approximately 2 deaths per day and represents 1% of all mortality. In this introduction we will discuss the normal anatomy of the aorta, aortic pathology, surgical therapy of aortic diseases and the aims and outline of the thesis.

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Het verschijnen van dit proefschrift werd mede mogelijk gemaakt door de steun van de Nederlandse Hartstichting en de H.Huysmans stichting
A.J.J.C. Bogers (Ad)
Erasmus University Rotterdam
hdl.handle.net/1765/37746
Erasmus MC: University Medical Center Rotterdam

Bekkers, J. (2012, November 14). Decades of Surgery on the Thoracic Aorta. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1765/37746