Images in cardio-thoracic surgery
Giant thoracic aneurysm with vertebral osteolysis: possible cause
of hypercalcemia?
Thierry Carrel
*
, Verena Eigenmann, Ju
¨rg Schmidli
Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, University Hospital, CH-3010 Bern, Switzerland
Received 25 November 2008; received in revised form 21 January 2009; accepted 26 January 2009; Available online 10 March 2009
Keywords: Thoraco-abdominal aneurysm; Surgery; Hypercalcemia
A 72-year-old patient suffering from dyspnea and
dysphagia. Severely elevated level of serum calcium
(4.75 mmol/l). Abnormal chest X-ray. CT scan showed a
14 cm thoraco-abdominal aneurysm compressing LV and
stomach (
Fig. 1
a).
After aortic replacement there was normalization of
hypercalcemia which was most probably caused by
pressure-induced destruction of the vertebral body (
Fig. 1
b).
www.elsevier.com/locate/ejcts European Journal of Cardio-thoracic Surgery 35 (2009) 904
Fig. 1. CT scan demonstrates huge thoraco-abdominal aneurysm with com-pression of the stomach and the heart (a) and erosion of a vertebral body (b). * Corresponding author. Tel.: +41 31 632 23 75; fax: +41 31 632 44 43.
E-mail address:[email protected](T. Carrel).
1010-7940/$ — see front matter # 2009 European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ejcts.2009.01.047
