Pulmonary thrombectomy

A pulmonary thrombectomy is an emergency surgical procedure used to remove blood clots from the pulmonary arteries.

[1] Surgical thrombectomies were once popular but were abandoned because of poor long-term outcomes.

Recently, in selected patients, they have gone through a resurgence with the revision of the surgical technique.

[2] Pulmonary thrombectomies and pulmonary thromboendarterectomies (PTEs) are both operations that remove thrombus.

Aside from this similarity they differ in many ways.

Large saddle thromboembolus in the pulmonary arteries (white arrows)