Description of the Surgical Strategy Used for the Treatment of a Complex Disease: Report of a Case

Abstract

We report a rare case in which a patient required three surgeries with competing priorities. In a 68-year-old man diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA), computed tomography (CT) revealed an infrarenal AAA, unusual thickening of the sigmoid colon that suggested cancer, and a filling defect in the left atrium. We considered the disease stage, which affects prognosis, and the risk of complications that could interfere with the treatment of the other pathologies and developed a three-stage surgical strategy: (i) endovascular aortic repair, (ii) sigmoid colectomy, and (iii) resection of the left atrial mass. The patient’s postsurgical recovery was uneventful.