Rupture of the free wall of the left ventricle (LV) is a catastrophic complication occurring in 4% of patients after myocardial infarction (MI) and in 23% of those who die of MI. Rarely the rupture is contained by an adherent pericardium creating a pseudo-aneurysm. This clinical finding calls for emergency surgery. If no ruptures are detectable and myocardium wall integrity is confirmed, we are in the presence of a true aneurysm, which can be treated by means of elective surgery. Differentiation between these two pathologies remains difficult. We report the case of a patient with a true aneurysm, initially diagnosed as pseudo-aneurysm at our institution; we have reviewed the literature on this difficult diagnosis and outlined characteristic findings of each clinical entity.

Ever since the first hybrid prosthesis was used for a total aortic arch replacement, many other techniques have been developed to comply with the need for the treatment of a wide spectrum of patients and their clinical pictures. We hereby provide an overview of the most popular surgical techniques to perform a frozen elephant trunk, including our tailored approach revolving around the antegrade deployment of a Gore C-TAG endovascular stent graft sutured to a four-branched vascular prosthesis. This technique was applied to three cases of acute type A aortic dissection. Although our small series of patients consists of acute aortic dissections only, this technique could be applied to any other aortic arch pathology, such as chronic dissections or aneurysms. Moreover, we believe that, because of the individually tailored approach and widespread availability of the necessary materials, this technique can reveal itself useful in many different operative scenarios.

Our aim was to perform antegrade selective cerebral perfusion with a different surgical technique using a new type of cannula. This cannula has been designed to be introduced in the supra-aortic vessels directly using a standard guidewire technique (Seldinger technique). The cannula can also be inserted from the ostia of a vessel if preferred. Furthermore, this device can be introduced before the institution of hypothermic circulatory arrest and opening the aortic arch. We have performed operations on 5 patients so far using this cannula. No stroke or spinal cord injuries were detected. At the moment, both intraoperatively and at computed tomography scan follow-up, no significant stenosis of the cannulation sites were noted. Follow-up at 2 years found that patients are alive and free from new major neurological events. Transarterial introduction using the Seldinger technique of our cannula (AV Flow; MedEurope Srl, Bologna, Italy) represents an alternative to the current well-established techniques. The major advantages we describe are complete cerebral protection throughout the hypothermic circulatory arrest and easier arch vessels reimplantation or hemiarch operations.

Antegrade selective cerebral perfusion has become the preferred choice for brain protection during aortic arch surgery. To perform antegrade selective cerebral perfusion, cannulas have been introduced directly into the ostia of the supra-aortic vessels (SAV) after institution of hypothermic circulatory arrest and opening the aortic arch. We describe a different surgical technique with a new type of cannula for antegrade selective cerebral perfusion. This cannula, called AV (Andrea Venturini) cannula, has been designed to be introduced in the SAV directly using a standard guidewire technique (Seldinger's technique). The AV cannula can also be introduced from the ostia of the SAV if preferred. The AV cannula can be introduced before the institution of hypothermic circulatory arrest and before opening the aortic arch. One great advantage of this technique is that the ostia of the SAV remain free from a cannula, allowing the operator easier access and a faster anastomosis or reimplantation.