Tandem coarctations of thoracic and abdominal aorta with intervening hypoplastic thoracic aorta: treatment with unilateral axillofemoral graft.

Tandem coarctations of the thoracic and abdominal aorta with an intervening segment of hypoplastic thoracic aorta were discovered unexpectedly in a 14-year-old boy brought to the emergency room for a displaced fracture of the radius. After the fracture healed, the boy's potentially dangerous anomalies were treated successfully with a unilateral axillofemoral prosthetic graft. This has remained patent for 42 months, and the boy has done well.

The coin lesion story: update 1976. Twenty years' experience with thoracotomy for 179 suspected malignant coin lesions.

We reviewed 179 patients who had undergone thoracotomy and resection of a suspected malignant coin lesion of the lung over the past 20 years to see if a policy of early thoracotomy was therapeutically valid. The average diameter of all lesions was 1.6 cm; the average diameter of 27 malignant lesions (15 percent) was 1.

Effective surgical palliation of giant compressive bullous emphysema (vanishing lung syndrome): long-term follow-up.

Giant compressive bullous emphysema is rare. The three major considerations for operation involve a breathless patient with giant bullae occupying more than one-third of one lung field who has a positive pulmonary arteriogram revealing diminished blood flow to the involved lung. Finally, we think that the survivors in our series, eight long-term postoperative patients alive one year to 14 years, supply gratifying evidence that surgery can provide effective and safe palliation.