[Illustration: FIG. 72.--Sacculated Aneurysm of Abdominal Aorta nearly
filled with laminated clot. Note greater density of clot towards
periphery.]
In the progress of an aneurysm towards rupture, timely clotting may
avert death for the moment, but while extension in one direction has
been arrested there is apt to be extension in another, with imminence of
rupture, or it may be again postponed.
#Differential Diagnosis.#--The diagnosis is to be made from other
pulsatile swellings. Pulsation is sometimes transmitted from a large
artery to a tumour, a mass of enlarged lymph glands, or an inflammatory
swelling which lies in its vicinity, but the pulsation is not
expansile--a most important point in differential diagnosis. Such
swellings may, by appropriate manipulation, be moved from the artery and
the pulsation ceases, and compression of the artery on the cardiac side
of the swelling, although it arrests the pulsation, does not produce any
diminution in the size or tension of the swelling, and when the pressure
is removed the pulsation is restored immediately.
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