Recent advances in vascular surgery have made many previously hopeless lesions of the thoracic aorta amenable to surgical correction. A major need exists, however, for improvement in the radiologic visualization of suspected lesions of the thoracic aorta. The purpose of this paper is to present a new method for thoracic aortography, utilizing the right supraclavicular approach.
Although a number of techniques have been employed in performing thoracic aortography, none seems to be entirely satisfactory. Retrograde arterial catheterization and injection of a radiopaque dye via the carotid artery,1 the radial artery,2 or the femoral artery3 often provide adequate visualization of the thoracic aorta but require operative arteriotomy and occasionally ligation of the vessel. Percutaneous parasternal aortic punctures are technically difficult and involve the risk of coronary perfusion.*
Recently Wickbom6 reported a simple direct method of percutaneous aortic injection via a cervical approach, with the needle paralleling the