HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Personal Folders Download to citation manager Author home page(s): Tom Treasure Robert H. Anderson John Pepper Permission Requests Google Scholar Articles by Treasure, T. Articles by Pepper, J. PubMed Articles by Treasure, T. Articles by Pepper, J. Related Collections Great vessels

Editorials

Unknown unknowns: the aorta through the looking glass

^a Clinical Operational Research Unit, UCL (Department of Mathematics), 4 Taviton Street, London WC1H 0BT, United Kingdom
^b Edt Ltd, Theocsbury House, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England, UK
^c Mechanical Engineering Department, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom
^d Royal Brompton Hospital, London SW3 6NP, United Kingdom
^e Institute of Child Health, London, United Kingdom

^_* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 79 57 16 87 54. (Email: tom.treasure@gmail.com).

Key Words: Aortic root surgery • Marfan syndrome • Computer assisted design

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Innovation in cardiovascular surgery has often depended upon interdisciplinary collaboration between surgeons and engineers. It was somewhat surprising to come face to face with a fundamental difference in perspective, which may be considered an unknown unknown.¹ It is standard practice to view radiographs of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis as if the patient is standing facing the doctor. This is also the anatomical position, the basis for all anatomical descriptions. It is a convention that applies even when the image is acquired postero-anteriorly as is the case when preparing a standard chest X-ray. When computerised axial tomography first became available a matching convention was established. Of the eight possible ways of viewing a transparency the one chosen presented the back of the patient towards the bottom of the page and the right hand side of the patient to the left side of the image [1]. This convention provides for the left to right orientation to match the chest radiograph but has the inevitable consequence that the cross-sectional images are displayed as if seen from below. It is contrary to how we look at plan views in other contexts: architects, geographers, builders, engineers, even roofers, interpret plans as if they are views from above.

How clinicians choose to look at a cross-sectional image need be of no concern to other disciplines until we need to transfer data between us. An innovative operation has been devised to prevent dilation of . . . [Full Text of this Article]