Plaque and structural characteristics of the descending thoracic aorta using transesophageal echocardiography.

The in vivo acoustic and structural characteristics of atherosclerosis in the descending thoracic aorta have not been well delineated. We prospectively evaluated the descending thoracic aorta of 147 patients (35 women and 112 men; age, 61 +/- 14 years) who underwent clinically indicated transesophageal echocardiography. Patients with suspected disease of the aorta were excluded.

Functional chiral asymmetry in descending thoracic aorta.

To determine whether rotational blood flow or chiral asymmetry exists in the human descending thoracic aorta, we established the ability of color Doppler ultrasound to detect rotational flow in a tornado tube model of a vortex descending fluid column. In a model of the human aortic arch with a pulse duplicator, color Doppler was then used to demonstrate that rotational flow occurs first in the transverse arch and then in the proximal descending thoracic aorta. With the use of color Doppler esophageal echocardiography, 53 patients (age range, 25-78 years; mean age, 56.