Traumatic arterial dissection in open-heart surgery.

During the past few years there have been an increasing number of reports in the medical literature of cases of traumatic dissection as a result of cannulation of the femoral or iliac arteries and retrograde perfusion during open- heart surgery (Jones, Vetto, Winterscheid, Dillard, and Merendino, 1960; Elliott and Roe, 1965). Over the past two years (October 1963 to October 1965) in 160 open-heart operations performed at the National Heart Hospital, five cases of traumatic arterial dissections were encountered with an incidence of 3-1%. CASE REPORTS CASE 1 F. W. (Hospital no. 1032) A man aged 60 years presented with a five years' history of angina on effort, dyspnoea on exertion, and paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnoea. Previously he had been asympto- matic, though a heart murmur was heard at the age of 25 years.