Computed tomography-guided percutaneous transthoracic fine-needle aspiration biopsy of lung lesions is a well known diagnostic technique. Nevertheless, it has some complications; such as pneumothorax, intraparenchymal hemorrhage and hemoptysis, which are not rare. Air embolism is one of the rare but potentially fetal complications of this procedure. Herein, we report the case of a 69-year-old m...

Fifty-five adults who had sustained a tibial fracture, or a femoral fracture, or both, were subjected to a double-blind randomised study to determine the efficacy of methylprednisolone in treating the fat embolism syndrome. This drug maintained arterial oxygen levels, stabilised or reduced the serum level of free fatty acids, and decreased the risk of the fat embolism syndrome in a statisticall...

In two patients pulmonary air embolism was a complication of the implantation of a permanent transvenous cardiac pacemaker. One of these patients, in whom air embolism was documented by cinefluorograms, is described in detail. Cinefluorograms demonstrated air in the right ventricle and main pulmonary artery with clear visualization of the opening and closing of the pulmonary valve. Both patient...

An 88-year-old woman was admitted with a huge bilateral pulmonary embolism and acute renal failure. On physical examination, a well-defined irregularly pigmented plaque 20 · 40 mm with black, brown and pink hues and an irregular border was noticed over the umbilicus (Fig. 1). A clinical diagnosis of malignant melanoma (MM) was suggested, and surgical excision planned. However, the patient’s pro...

We describe a rare case of acute myocardial infarction secondary to paradoxical embolism complicating acute pulmonary embolism. A 44-year-old woman presented to the emergency department with chest pain. The physical examination was unremarkable except for oxygen saturation of 75%, and the electrocardiogram showed ST-segment elevation in the inferior leads. Urgent coronary angiography showed a d...

Flexible bronchoscopy is a widely used and safe procedure with a reported maximal mortality rate of 0.04% and a major-complications rate of 0.5%. There are, however, only few case descriptions for postinterventional cerebral air embolism and the frequency of this supposedly rare complication is unknown. The current study presents 2 patients with non-small cell lung cancer who suffered fatal cer...

Massive cerebral and spinal gas embolism occurs rarely as a complication of discectomy. We report a 54-year-old female who had undergone a discectomy (L3/4 and L4/5) under epidural anesthesia in a local hospital developed multiple massive gas embolisms. At closure, surgeons irrigated the incision wound with hydrogen peroxide. Soon after the irrigation, the patient suddenly developed tachycardia...

Arterial carbon dioxide (CO2) embolism is a serious and sometimes fatal iatrogenic medical condition encountered in surgery. A thirty-five year old Caucasian female developed a CO2 embolism during a laparoscopic appendectomy. After initial resuscitation and completion of the surgery, she was treated with hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) to help reduce the size of large CO2 bubbles that had migrated int...