The following is a summary of “Simple and secure thrombectomy without circulatory arrest for acute pulmonary embolism,” published in the February 2024 issue of Surgery by Sasaki et al.
Surgical pulmonary artery thrombectomy serves as a crucial intervention for managing massive pulmonary embolism (PE) instances resistant to fibrinolysis or thrombolysis. Nonetheless, addressing massive PE cases necessitating peripheral pulmonary artery thrombus removal poses significant challenges. To address this, researchers devised a streamlined and reliable pulmonary artery thrombectomy approach utilizing cardiopulmonary bypass and cardiac arrest. They used the surgical assistant arm conventionally utilized in coronary artery bypass grafting to facilitate thrombectomy procedures.
This report details seven consecutive cases of massive PE managed with the aforementioned surgical technique, all of which demonstrated successful weaning from cardiopulmonary bypass or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation postoperatively.
This method is an effective measure to avert right ventricular failure post-surgery, affording surgeons a clear visual field to remove peripheral thrombi, extending up to the second branch of the pulmonary artery.
Source: cardiothoracicsurgery.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13019-024-02535-y
