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Background The presence of right heart thromboemboli complicating pulmonary thromboemboli carries with it an increased mortality rate compared to pulmonary thromboemboli alone, but little is known about the optimal management of this difficult clinical situation. This fact is highlighted in the case study of a patient with a 19-cm right atrial thrombus complicating bilateral pulmonary thromboemboli. Study objectives We sought to determine the effects of anticoagulation therapy, thrombolysis, and surgical embolectomy on mortality rate in patients with right heart thromboemboli. Design Retrospective analysis of all reported cases in the English language literature (1966 to 2000) of right heart thromboembolism in which age, sex, therapy, and outcome were reported. Measurements and results We analyzed 177 cases of right heart thromboembolism. Pulmonary thromboembolism was present in 98% of the cases. The patients were evenly divided by gender with an average age of 59.8 years (SD, 16.6 years) years. Dyspnea (54.2%), chest pain (22.6%), and syncope (17.5%) were the most common presenting symptoms. The treatments administered were none (9%), anticoagulation therapy (35.0%), surgical procedure (35.6%), or thrombolytic therapy (19.8%). The overall mortality rate was 27.1%. The mortality rate associated with no therapy, anticoagulation therapy, surgical embolectomy, and thrombolysis was 100.0%, 28.6%, 23.8%, and 11.3%, respectively. Using multivariate modeling with survival as the primary outcome, age and gender were not associated with mortality rate, but thrombolytic therapy was associated with an improved survival rate (p Conclusion The presence of right heart thromboemboli may have diagnostic and therapeutic implications in pulmonary thromboembolism patients. A well-designed prospective, randomized trial is needed to determine the optimal treatment of right heart thromboemboli.

Constrictive bronchiolitis results in airways obstruction with progressive lung hyperinflation causing dyspnea and eventual respiratory failure. There are many known causes including rheumatic diseases, infections and toxic inhalations. We describe a 58-year-old man with no preexisting lung disease who suffered rapid loss of lung function with hyperinflation over months in association with rapidly progressive radiographic bronchiectasis. Airway cultures grew Mycobacterium kansasii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Aspergillus fumigatus; lung biopsy showed constrictive bronchiolitis that was clinically idiopathic. His respiratory symptoms and pulmonary function rapidly improved within a week of high-dose corticosteroid therapy. We suggest that a diagnosis of constrictive bronchiolitis should be considered in patients with a combination of new rapidly progressive lung hyperinflation and worsening bronchiectasis. We hypothesize that the bronchiolitis-associated bronchiectasis may occur from a predisposition for secondary infections known to cause large airway wall damage. Identification and adequate treatment of these infections is critical if concurrent high-dose corticosteroid therapy is attempted to alleviate the constrictive bronchiolitis.

Background The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between donor–recipient height, gender and predicted estimates of total lung capacity (pTLC) mismatches and post-transplant survival. Methods The lung transplant databases at three programs were reviewed. The pTLC ratios (donor pTLC/recipient pTLC) and height ratios (donor height/recipient height) were calculated retrospectively. Patients were grouped according to pTLC ratio ≤1.0 or >1.0 and height ratio ≤1.0 or >1.0, and according to gender (mis-)matching. A time-to-event analysis was performed for risk of death after transplantation conditional on 30-day survival using Kaplan–Meier survival and Cox proportional hazard models. Results There were 211 adult bilateral lung transplant recipients who qualified for the analysis. Mean follow-up was comparable for all cohorts (range 2.21 to 3.85 years). In the univariate Cox proportional hazard models, a pTLC ratio >1.0 (HR 0.43, p = 0.002) and a height ratio >1.0 (HR 0.61, p = 0.03) were associated with better survival, and a female-donor-to-male-recipient gender mismatch (F-to-M) was associated with worse survival (HR 2.35, p = 0.01). In the multivariate Cox proportional hazard model accounting for F-to-M gender mismatch and height ratio >1.0, a pTLC ratio >1.0 remained associated with survival (HR 0.38, p = 0.015). However, accounting for a pTLC ratio >1.0, a height ratio of >1.0 and F-to-M mismatch were not associated with survival. Conclusions A pTLC ratio >1.0 is associated with improved survival after bilateral lung transplantation. The pTLC ratio might better reflect allograft–thorax mismatch than the height ratio, as it also accounts for effects of gender on lung and thoracic volumes.