Intraoperative Thrombolysis for Pulmonary Embolism during Thymoma Resection

Author Info

Georgios Stefanakis Vasileia Nyktari Georgios Papastratigakis Panagiotis Vardakis Periklis Vasilos Emmanouela Koutoulaki

Corresponding Author

Georgios Stefanakis
Department of Anesthesiology, University Hospital of Heraklion, Heraklion, Crete, Greece

A B S T R A C T

We report a case of pulmonary embolism during resection of a mediastinal mass requiring intraoperative thrombolysis. The diagnosis, although difficult to establish due to simultaneous bleeding and technical difficulties with transthoracic echocardiography, was based on the patient’s history and clinical evidence of low cardiac output and was confirmed by clinical improvement post thrombolysis. When awakened in the intensive care unit, the patient was found to be blind and also required a tracheostomy. We present this case, as it requires complex clinical reasoning throughout different stages of its management and it demonstrates that, when facing an imminent disaster, a risky decision not necessarily conforming to current practice but based on individualisation of treatment can be life-saving.

Article Info

Article Type

Case Report

Publication history

Received: Wed 15, Sep 2021
Accepted: Thu 30, Sep 2021
Published: Wed 20, Oct 2021

Copyright

© 2023 Georgios Stefanakis. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.JSO.2021.02.05