Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Pseudo-Aneurysm

We went to the Vascular Lab at St. Luke's Eagle this morning.  Chris had an ultrasound on the painful cardiac catheter site in his groin, at Dr. Mallea's request.

It turns out that Chris has a pseudo-aneurysm at the site.  However, it's small and doesn't seem to need immediate treatment.   Here's some information from Wikipedia:
A pseudo-aneurysm is a collection of blood leaking completely out of an artery or vein, but confined next to the vessel by the surrounding tissue. This blood-filled cavity will eventually either thrombose (clot) enough to seal the leak or rupture out of the tougher tissue enclosing it and flow freely between layers of other tissues or into looser tissues. Pseudo-aneurysms can be caused by trauma that punctures the artery and are a known complication of percutaneous arterial procedures, such as arteriography, arterial grafting, or use of an artery for injection, such as by drug abusers unable to find a usable vein. Like true aneurysms, they may be felt as an abnormal pulsatile mass on palpation.
He will follow up with Dr. Mallea on Thursday the 5th of April.  However, he'll need to go to the ER if the site gets any more painful, red, larger, or hot.


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