ABSTRACT
Acute lower extremity ischemia from septic emboli is a surgical emergency. Timely diagnosis and management are critical to improve patient outcome. However, traditional diagnostic modalities such as intraoperative angiogram are time-consuming, require special equipment and personnel, and introduce contrast exposure for critically ill patients. There are limited reports of utilization of point-of-care ultrasound to detect peripheral septic emboli. We present a case where femoral occlusive septic emboli were identified by point-of-care ultrasound after mitral valve replacement. This facilitated early surgical embolectomy and limb salvage. We suggest that perioperative point-of-care ultrasonography should be used as a first-line screening test in patients with acute lower extremity ischemia.
Subject(s)
Arterial Occlusive Diseases/diagnostic imaging , Embolism/diagnostic imaging , Femoral Artery/diagnostic imaging , Intraoperative Complications/diagnostic imaging , Mitral Valve/surgery , Point-of-Care Systems , Adult , Humans , Male , UltrasonographyABSTRACT
We present a patient with a right ventricular hemangioma and symptomatic right ventricular outflow tract obstruction.
