Jefferson Aortic Center
About the Center
The Jefferson Aortic Center is a program that coordinates nearly a dozen medical and surgical disciplines to provide the best
possible treatment for patients with aortic disease.
Patients come to Jefferson from throughout the northeastern Unites States through referrals and emergency transfers via ambulance
and helicopter. Complications involving the aorta are time sensitive complex aortic challenges including timely transfer coordinated
through our world class Jefferson Transfer Center.
Our Emergency Department is staffed 24/7 by highly skilled senior physicians uniquely qualified to diagnose and treat aortic
problems. These clinicians provide the next level of care in our streamlined care pathway designed to minimize time as a variable
in surgical outcomes. The Emergency Department is also one of the few in the Delaware Valley equipped with a 64-slice CT scanner.
Patients with suspected aortic disease are promptly evaluated using the most technologically sophisticated imaging tools in
the world.
Through the combined efforts of the Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery and the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery,
the Jefferson Aortic Center staffs surgeons proficient in both traditional “open” surgery and minimally invasive endovascular
techniques. Treatments are tailored to the best interests of each individual patient. Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals
invests millions of dollars in emergency and operating room inventory to ensure >patients can be expeditiously treated the
moment they arrive at our facility. Our anesthesia team provides comprehensive preoperative and intraoperative evaluations
using techniques such as transesophageal echocardiography and spinal drainage to guide the operative management and minimize
postoperative complications and patient discomfort.
Our ongoing clinical trials place Jefferson among the first hospitals in the country to provide patients with the latest and
best that technology has to offer. The newest treatments of thoracic aortic aneurysms and aortic dissection will be available
here at Jefferson. In collaboration with the departments of Pathology, Anatomy and Cell Biology, and Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology, and laboratories in the Division of Surgical Research we are continuously striving to further understand diseases
of the aorta so that more effective treatment options can be developed.
The field of aortic surgery is continuously changing and thanks to a strong referral base, the full support of the Jefferson
Health System, and a multidisciplinary group of talented physicians, the Jefferson Aortic Center is able to adapt and provide
expeditious state-of-the-art treatments for all types of aortic diseases.
As Director of the Jefferson Aortic Center, I would like to express continued appreciation and gratitude to our loyal referring
physicians for enabling us to build one of the most comprehensive aortic surgery programs in the world.
Paul J. DiMuzio, MD, FACS
Director, Jefferson Aortic Center
