Aortic pseudoaneurysm due to piercing ring injury

A 43-year old man presented with chest pain and fever. He had inadvertently inhaled a nasal piercing which caused injury to the descending aorta through the left bronchus. The resulting pseu-doaneurysm was treated with endovascular stenting after left carotido-subclavian bypass (Figs 1 and 2). The patient died 2 years later due to drug overdose. Figure 1: CT scan showing the false aneurysm (asterisk) and the metal piercing (arrow). Figure 2: CT scan following successful endovascular treatment of the aortic lesion.