ABSTRACT
A 63 year-old female presented with dyspnea on exertion. Her chest X-ray showed cardiomegaly, and right ventricular overload and tricuspid regurgitation were detected. Her pulmonary ventilation and blood flow scintigraphy findings were suspicious of pulmonary vascular disease; the diagnosis was pulmonary hypertension and bilateral branch pulmonary artery stenosis. After the inflammation settled, the stenotic bilateral branch pulmonary artery was reconstructed with a prosthetic vessel and the pulmonary pressure normalized immediately. A resected specimen revealed that the stenotic changes were from Takayasu's disease. The patient's postoperative course was uneventful, and pulmonary ventilation and blood scintigraphy returned to an almost normal range. At follow-up 5 years and 6 months after the operation, there was no evidence of pulmonary artery disease (eg, stenosis and/or ischemia) or of any change in the central vessels of the retina, the so-called Takayasu's retinopathy.
Subject(s)
Plastic Surgery Procedures/methods , Pulmonary Artery/surgery , Takayasu Arteritis/surgery , Vascular Diseases/surgery , Female , Humans , Middle Aged , Pulmonary Artery/pathology , Pulmonary Heart Disease/pathology , Pulmonary Heart Disease/surgery , Takayasu Arteritis/complications , Takayasu Arteritis/pathology , Vascular Diseases/etiologyABSTRACT
Between January 1993 and December 2001, we employed percutaneous cardiopulmonary support (PCPS) in 35 patients. PCPS was used for postcardiotomy in 25 of these patients who could not be weaned from cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) because of severe cardiogenic shock. In the other 10 patients, PCPS was used for a non-surgical disease. Twenty-nine patients (82.9%) were weaned from PCPS, and 28 (80.0%) survived. The other 7 patients (20.0%) died due to postoperative complications. The causes of death were multiple organ failure (MOF) due to wound bleeding, low cardiac output syndrome (LOS), myonephropathic metabolic syndrome (MNMS) with severe lower limbs ischemia, cerebrovascular accident (CVA), and sepsis. The first cause for the complications was postoperative sustained severe heart failure. To improve the survival rate, it was necessary to prevent bleeding and begin PCPS at an earlier stage.