A 46-year-old obese woman undergoing treatment for bipolar disorder presented with acute shortness of breath, chest pain and palpitations. She was tachypnoea and tachycardia, but blood pressure was stable. Computed tomography angiogram revealed bilateral pulmonary embolism. Echocardiogram revealed thrombus-in-transit. She underwent surgical embolectomy only for thrombus-in-transit and closure of the patent foramen ovale. However, pulmonary hypertension worsened, haemodynamical instability prolonged and hepatic congestion progressed. After veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation insertion, we performed thrombectomy by catheter and anticoagulation therapy. One month later, the patient was transferred to another hospital for rehabilitation.
Keywords: Cardiac catheterization; Endarterectomy; Intervention; Pulmonary embolism; Thrombosis.
© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery.