Reduced mortality, paraplegia, and stroke with stent graft repair of blunt aortic transections: a modern meta-analysis.

Objective: Stent grafting has become the first-line approach to traumatic thoracic aortic transections (TTAT) in some trauma centers due to a perceived decrease in morbidity and mortality compared with standard open repair. We reviewed contemporary outcomes of patients undergoing endovascular repair of TTAT (endoTTAT) and those undergoing open repair (openTTAT) to determine if current reported results support first-line use of endoTTAT.

Method: Retrospective, nonrandomized studies published in English (>5 cases/report) involving TTAT listed in PubMed between 2001 and 2006 were systematically reviewed.