Surgical repair of coarctation of the aorta in adults

We report the surgical treatment of coarctation of the aorta (CoA) in 3 adults, 2 women and 1 man, aged between 18 and 32 years old. All of the patients had blood pressure gradients higher than 70 mmHg between the upper and lower limbs. In 2 patients, we simply clamped the aorta and excised the CoA: while in the other patient, we excised the CoA using partial extracorporeal circulation with a femoro-femoral (F-F) bypass. Reconstruction was done by an end to end anastomosis in 2 patients and with an artificial tube graft in 1 patient who regulred the extended aortic arch repair. Postoperatively, the pressure gradients between the upper and lower limbs dropped to below 20 mmHg in intensive care unit (ICU). Two of the patients have now stopped taking antihypertensive drugs and the other patient is taking half the preoperative dose.