Right pulmonary artery occlusion by an acute dissecting aneurysm of the ascending aorta

Abstract

We describe the case of a 76-year old female who presented with a Type A aortic dissection requiring repair with an interposition graft and aortic valve replacement. Post-operatively she had clinical features and computerised tomographic images suggestive of a pulmonary embolus and died 24 hours later. The extremely rare finding of intramural thrombus occluding the right pulmonary artery was seen at post mortem. © 2006 De Silva et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.