**1. Introduction**

426 Aneurysm

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Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in most Western societies and it is increasing steadily in many developing countries. Aortic diseases constitute an emerging share of the burden. New diagnostic imaging modalities, longer life expectancy in general, longer exposure to elevated blood pressure, and the proliferation of modern noninvasive imaging modalities have all contributed to the growing awareness of acute and chronic aortic syndromes. Despite recent progress in recognition of both the epidemiological problem, diagnostic and therapeutic advances, the cardiology community and the medical community in general are far from comfortable in understanding the spectrum of aortic syndromes and defining an optimal pathway to manage aortic diseases.

Aortic aneurysms and dissections are the main disorders that can affect this artery in the thoracic cavity. Thoracic aortic aneurysms are usually asymptomatic, a silent disease, and they may not be diagnosed until a serious complication appears, such as acute aortic dissection or rupture. Those complications have a high morbidity and mortality, and entail a considerable healthcare expenditure. Prophylactic aortic surgery is being applied to prevent these potentially catastrophic aortic complications. It is very important to correctly identify patients at high risk, by establishing periodic monitoring and follow-up with imaging tests to determine the size of the aorta and the rate of aortic growth.

There have been identified many genetic syndromes that may predispose to the development of thoracic aortic aneurysms and type A aortic dissections. The most important is the Marfan syndrome, as almost all patients with this syndrome will develop an ascending aortic aneurysm throughout his life.

© 2012 Ramirez-Marrero et al., licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2012 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
