General thoracic and cardiovascular surgery
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Gen Thorac Cardiovasc Surg · Oct 2011
Case ReportsReports of four surgical treatments of acute pulmonary embolism with a floating thrombus in the right atrium.
Acute pulmonary embolism (APE) is a serious disease. Recently, multidetector-row computed tomography (MDCT) has proven to be valuable in detecting APE and deep vein thrombosis. APE is classified as massive, submassive, and nonmassive. ⋯ We examined the surgical outcomes in four cases of submassive APE with a floating thrombus in the right atrium (RA) from August 2003 to July 2008. All patients appeared to have no neurological complications and showed an event-free survival of up to 65 months (37 ± 25 months). Surgical pulmonary embolectomy was effective for submassive APE with a floating thrombus in the RA.