To cite: Morcos KHK, Roditi G, Craig S. Thorax Published Online First: [please include Day Month Year] doi:10.1136/thoraxjnl2012-202869 HISTORY A 30-year-old man with a 3 day history of increasing breathlessness and frank haemoptysis was suspected of having pulmonary embolism and anticoagulated with heparin. Haemoptysis worsened so anticoagulation was reversed and he was transferred to our inst...

Parent artery ligation is an accepted treatment for intracranial aneurysms that are not amenable to a direct surgical approach. Parent artery ligation is one of the oldest effective surgical means of aneurysm therapy (the "Hunterian principle" (1 ]). Recently it has become possible to perform parent artery occlusion of the carotid or vertebral artery percutaneously by using detachable balloon t...

A 73-year-old woman had undergone hemiarch replacement with primary entry resection for treating acute type A dissection 6 years ago. Postoperative computed tomography (CT) showed a patent false lumen (FL) in the aortic arch and a reentry tear in the right subclavian artery. The remaining aortic arch enlarged, which resulted in formation of a 55-mm-diameter aneurysm. We performed reentry occlus...

A 47 year-old man, presenting with sudden back pain in the absence of abdominal discomfort, was diagnosed with acute type B aortic dissection which extended to the celiac and the splenic arteries. Antihypertensive treatment was initiated. However, he subsequently complained of upper abdominal pain with increased amylase levels. Computed tomography scan (CT) revealed new accumulation of peripanc...

INTRODUCTION The key to treatment of a thrombosed dialysis graft is restoration and maintenance of function as long as possible. The objective of this study was to compare the outcomes of pharmacomechanical thrombolysis and surgical thrombectomy in the treatment of thrombosed haemodialysis grafts. MATERIALS AND METHODS During a 3-year period, 108 patients with 114 thrombosed dialysis grafts w...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Laser-assisted end to end vascular anastomosis of an elastin heterograft to native artery may prevent problems associated with currently available vascular synthetic grafts and conventional suture anastomosis. STUDY DESIGN/MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 21 anastomoses in the carotid arteries of 7 domestic swine were performed with an 800 nm laser and an albumin ste...