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Previous Volume 331:815 September 22, 1994 Number 12 Next

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To the Editor: Nienaber (May 12 issue)¹ presented an image of an aortic dissection obtained by transesophageal echocardiography in a horizontal plane. He described the dissection as located in the ascending aorta, approximately 3 cm above the aortic valve. The absence of any visualized structure between the transesophageal echocardiographic probe and the aorta suggests that the probe was in immediate proximity to the aortic wall. Because the esophagus normally lies adjacent only to the descending aorta, we suspect that the segment of the aorta depicted corresponds to the descending rather than the ascending aorta.

Markus Jakob, M.D.
Donat R. Spahn, M.D.
Rolf Jenni, M.D., M.S.E.E.
University of Zurich
CH-8091 Zurich, Switzerland

References

1. Nienaber CA. Dissection of the ascending thoracic aorta. N Engl J Med 1994;330:1361-1361. [Free Full Text]

To the Editor: We thank our colleagues for their vigilance and attentive comments. As they point out, the ultrasonographic image of an aortic dissection shows the descending aorta at the level described, rather than the ascending segment. Legends from various sets of ultrasonographic images were inadvertently intermixed.

Christoph A. Nienaber, M.D.
Dietmar Koschyk, M.D.
University Hospital Eppendorf
20246 Hamburg, Germany

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