Bilateral femoral artery aneurysms in a patient with long-standing traumatic paraplegia: report of a case.

The etiology of femoral artery aneurysms is believed to involve the interaction of a genetic alteration that predisposes to the loss of arterial wall integrity. This is precipitated by local forces such as repeated flexion of the arteries at the hip. We describe herein a case of bilateral femoral and right internal iliac artery aneurysms that developed in a patient with long-standing paraplegia. This could suggest that alterations in the arterial wall caused by stress and kinking during hip flexion may not play a principal role in the pathogenesis of nonspecific femoral artery aneurysms.