The aorta

Abstract

The aorta is the largest artery in the body. It arises from the left ventricle, ascends for a short distance in the thorax, then forms an arch, and finally descends through the chest and through the abdomen, where it ends by dividing into two arteries called the common iliac arteries. Echocardiography is useful for every aortic disease that involves size, shape, and atherosclerotic degeneration of the thoracic aorta. With transesophageal echocardiography we can easily visualize and study the aortic root and the proximal ascending aorta, and transesophageal echocardiography can resolve the technical limitation of transthoracic echocardiography in the examination of the thoracic aorta.