Paraplegia after Resection of Aneurysms of the Abdominal Aorta

Abstract

IN an exhaustive review of the neurologic complications of aortic surgery published in 1956, Adams and van Geertruyden¹ were unable to find a single case of spinal-cord damage after intraoperative infrarenal aortic occlusion. These authors concluded that when the major arterial supply to the lumbosacral part of the spinal cord is infrarenal in origin, there is always sufficient collateral blood supply to the cord from the proximal anterior spinal artery to prevent spinal-cord infarction. De Bakey's 1964 review of over 14,000 cases of aneurysm of the abdominal aorta did not describe this complication.² Only five cases of spinal-cord damage after . . .