Aneurysm – Time Bomb

You can live with this insidious disease for years, go about your daily activities and not experience any symptoms. In the meantime, the aneurysm will quietly grow in the body, threatening to rupture at any moment. Why not a time bomb? But even when the doctor makes a diagnosis, the patient is not able to fully understand the full danger of the situation.

An aneurysm is a protrusion of the wall of an artery (less commonly, a vein) due to its thinning or stretching. As a result, a so-called aneurysmal sac appears, which can compress nearby tissues.

Aneurysm is most often congenital. However, at the birth of a child, this defect is invisible, and the baby develops completely normally. Diseases that thin blood vessels also lead to aneurysm: hypertension, atherosclerosis, syphilis (at a late stage). The risk of development appears when a blood vessel is injured or injured, as well as when infected blood clots form.

Often an aneurysm is discovered by chance, during ultrasound or x-ray examination. If it is detected, urgent treatment is required, since rupture of the aneurysm leads to hemorrhage, which is often fraught with death.

When an aneurysm ruptures, a person feels severe pain and their blood pressure drops sharply. Despite the obvious danger of the disease, the governments of many countries still do not pay due attention to this problem.

In the United States, almost as many people die each year from aneurysms as from AIDS (about 24 thousand people). At the same time, $500 thousand and $1.4 billion are allocated respectively to combat these diseases.

A sudden rupture of an aneurysm cut short the lives of such prominent people as Albert Einstein, Charles de Gaulle, actor Andrei Mironov and musician Zhenya Belousov.

Acquired aneurysm is believed to be more common in patients over 50 years of age. In young people, it usually develops as a result of injuries received in car accidents or while playing extreme sports.

There are several types of aneurysm. Cerebral aneurysm is the most dangerous and common form. It is characterized by local dilation of the arteries of the brain. According to many doctors, complications after its rupture are comparable to the consequences of a stroke. In case of hemorrhage, sharp pain and loss of consciousness are noted. In half of the cases, death occurs, and many of the survivors remain disabled.

Aortic aneurysm is an equally dangerous disease. It can develop in different parts of this blood vessel. The lumen of the aorta expands 2 times compared to normal. This diagnosis is made by 50 thousand people a year. In the later stages, patients complain of pressing pain in one or another part of the body.

With a peripheral vascular (extremity) aneurysm, patients may experience severe pain in the legs and arms.

A cardiac aneurysm is characterized by a sac-like protrusion of the heart wall. The acquired form is found in 5-20% of patients who have had myocardial infarction.

If any form of aneurysm is detected, surgical intervention is required. The essence of the operation is to excise the damaged area of ​​the vessel and replace it with a prosthesis or a fragment of a blood vessel from another part of the body.