Case report

Repair of injured right inferior pulmonary vein during mitral valve replacement

Efstratios Apostolakis¹ , Vassilios N Leivaditis¹ , Antonios Kallikourdis² and Panagiotis Dedeilias³

¹  Cardiothoracic Surgery Department, Patras University Medical School, Patras, Greece

²  Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Aberdeen, UK

³  1st Cardiac Surgery Department, Evangelismos General Hospital, Athens, Greece

author email corresponding author email

Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery 2009, 4:64doi:10.1186/1749-8090-4-64

Published:	7 November 2009

Abstract

During mitral valve surgery right pulmonary veins injury, subsequent to excessive traction (for better exposure of the mitral apparatus), is often unavoidable. This is more likely in patients with small left atrium. This common complication may cause severe intraoperative bleeding, while its surgical repair may lead to complications such as late stenosis or obstruction of the pulmonary veins. This injury should be early detected, before left atriotomy closing, and it is suggested to be repaired using a patch so as to avoid any possible late constriction.

We describe a case -to our knowledge, the first reported in the literature- of intraoperatively injured right inferior pulmonary vein in a patient who underwent mitral valve replacement. As outlined we propose that the ostium of the right inferior pulmonary vein can be repaired by using autologous pericardial patch, incorporated in the completion of left atriotomy closure.