Saturday, May 02, 2009


Aneurysm with aortic stenosis just distal to the origin of the left subclavian artery in thoraic aorta.


Patients will be waiting for long time with symptoms before they come to the major hospitals with large aneurysms of this size due to various reasons.
In addition to the socio-economic reasons they also fear that the operations are not safe in the hospitals. When are grown to this size as there is no alternative they come to hospitals in prerupture syndrome. The results in such patients with prerupture or rupture of the thoracic aneurysms the results are critical supporting their fears. We need to develop a aneurysm central registry to help these patients with the initiative of the government. The national surgical and medical associations can be given this responsibility by the government or medical council of India.
Radial artery Aneurysm in a young man working in bar

Glass bottle or glass piece injuries to the forearm can easily injure the radial artery which is superficial and close to the bone. The local pressure can stop the bleeding and it may result in thrombosis of the radial artery without any problems. But in some it can recanalize and later present as pseudoaneurysm ( 2-3 months) as in this case. It will be tender to touch and starts expanding after that. In this patient the ulnar artery is palpable and it is providing the major blood supply to the palm. Simple excision of the aneurysm and repair of the radial artery is required. Some times one may argue that ligation of the radial artery proximal and distal to the aneurysm may be sufficient to releive the symptoms.

Friday, May 01, 2009


Are we still seeing Buerger's disease (TAO)?

we used to see more patients with gangrenous tips due to excessive smoking in young people 15 years back. Then slowly the number of such patients attending our clinic slowly decreased. But in the recent past again we are finding more of them coming to our clinics. It is probably due to the Aarogyasri scheme which is providing them financial support to come to the big hospitals for special care. The disease presentation in the hospitals is dependent on many aspects and one may get misguided if the disease presentation is not understood. Buerger's disease still persists in our low socioeconomic group of people.

Synthetic graft for replacing the diseased common femoral artery and superficial femoral artery in the groion with implantation of the profunda femoris artery.

Young smokers usually present to the vascular clinics from the rural areas with disease below the knee and above the knee. Such patients may need repair of the thigh blood vessels with poor distal runoff below the knee. One would be heistantly usin the synthetic grafts in them as there is no other alternative to the diseased veins (graft). In such cases we feel it is very important to make sure the profundafemoris branch is revascularised (with or without endarterectomy) by reimplanting it in to the synthetic graft. This will probably help also in improving the patency of the synthetic graft. This video was taken after completion of the operation where the profunda is attached to the graft ( hidden) in graft bed.

Pinjal R K '09