Response: Heroin Use Could Also Be Associated with Ruptured Aortic Aneurysms

Excerpt

We thank Drs. Wu and Lin for their insightful editorial on our study, “Heroin Use Is Associated with Ruptured Saccular Aneurysms,” which showed that heroin use is significantly associated with intracranial aneurysm rupture in patients with non-mycotic saccular aneurysms [1]. Their finding of acute aortic dissections in heroin users is interesting and suggests that there may be a common mechanism behind the formation of intracranial saccular aneurysms and aortic aneurysms. As Drs. Wu and Lin pointed out, it has recently been shown that hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) induction exacerbates angiotensin II-induced abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) by upregulating matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) in angiotensin II-infused hyperlipidemic mice, whereas HIF-1α inhibition attenuated aneurysm progression [2, 3]. Whether these findings are applicable to intracranial aneurysms remains to be elucidated. …