INTRODUCTION Idiopathic phrenic nerve palsy is a rare cause of exertional dyspnea. We present a case of a patient presenting with worsening dyspnea of an unknown etiology found to be related to bilateral phrenic nerve palsy. DISCUSSION Forty-two-year-old man presented to our emergency department with exertional dyspnea, orthopnea, and a left lower lobe consolidation treated initially as bronc...

Anatomical evidence indicates that midcervical interneurons can be synaptically coupled with phrenic motoneurons. Accordingly, we hypothesized that interneurons in the C3-C4 spinal cord can display discharge patterns temporally linked with inspiratory phrenic motor output. Anesthetized adult rats were studied before, during, and after a 4-min bout of moderate hypoxia. Neuronal discharge in C3-C...

Phrenic nerve injury can occur as a complication of lung transplantation. A 54-year-old man underwent single-lung transplantation due to interstitial pneumonia. The patient required circulatory support with venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and was unable to be weaned from ventilatory support with nitric oxide. Although enhanced CT scanning showed stenotic anastomosis of the righ...

Traditionally, suprascapular nerve reconstruction in obstetric brachial plexus palsy is done using either the proximal C5 root stump or the spinal accessory nerve. This paper introduces another potential donor nerve for neurotizing the suprascapular nerve: the phrenic nerve communicating branch to the C5 root. The prevalence of this communicating branch ranges from 23% to 62% in various anatomi...

BACKGROUND Phrenic nerve palsy remains the most frequent complication associated with cryoballoon-based pulmonary vein (PV) isolation. We sought to characterize our experience using a novel monitoring technique for the prevention of phrenic nerve palsy. METHODS AND RESULTS Two hundred consecutive cryoballoon-based PV isolation procedures between October 2010 and October 2013 were studied. In ...

: Iatrogenic phrenic nerve injury is an issue that all thoracic surgeons will be called to tackle during their career. Injury of the leads paralysis hemidiaphragm, which can result in a spectrum symptom severity from asymptomatic disabling shortness breath. It any operation requiring dissection close its anatomical pathway neck diaphragm, but also at risk with interventional procedures within v...

Langendorff (1887) and Girard (1890) observed contractions of one half of the diaphragm in rabbits and dogs after an ipsilateral semisection of the spinal cord above C3 and severance of the contralateral phrenic nerve. Schiff (1894) and Porter (1895) showed that the crossing of the respiratory impulses did not occur until the phrenic was cut on the opposite side. Porter further demonstrated tha...

OBJECTIVES To assess the possibilities of reinnervation in a paralyzed hemidiaphragm via an anastomosis between phrenic nerve and inferior laryngeal nerve in rabbits. Reinnervation of a paralyzed diaphragm could be an alternative to treat patients with ventilatory insufficiency due to upper cervical spine injuries. MATERIAL AND METHOD Rabbits were divided into five groups of seven rabbits eac...

The phrenic nucleus was identified by microinjections of N-methyl-d-aspartic acid in urethan-anesthetized adult male Wistar rats. Microinjections of GABAA and GABAB receptor agonists (muscimol and baclofen, respectively) at the same site decreased the phrenic nerve burst amplitude. Microinjections of GABAA and GABAB receptor antagonists (bicuculline and 2-hydroxysaclofen, respectively) blocked ...

Phrenic nerve pacing can be used to treat congenital central Objective: hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS). We report how the lack of normal vocal cord tone during phrenic paced respiration can result in passive vocal cord collapse and produce obstructive symptoms. We describe a case of passive vocal cord collapse during phrenic Methods: nerve paced respiration in a patient with CCHS. As far as we...