Abstract
Extensive calcification of arteries are sometimes found in patients who have been dialyzed for chronic renal failure. Some non-dialyzed patients also have aortas characterized by circumferential calcification, so called “porcelain aorta”. A porcelain aorta is too hard and brittle to clamp or even operate . For example, if a porcelain aorta must occluded by an occlusion balloon, it is difficult to anastomose the wall of the porcelain aorta. The porcelain (unclampable) aorta thus presents a challenging problem to the cardiac and/or vascular surgeon, and various operation methods had been contrived.
We report a 57-year-old man who had received hemodialysis for 32 years. It was found that the patient had a large cell carcinoma in the left upper lung that invaded to his porcelain aorta. We were unable to clamp or sideclamp the porcelain aorta because the calcified wall was brittle, and we did not resect and replace the invaded aorta with a prosthesis. Left upper lobectomy was performed, but was not a radical operation because of the leftover invaded aorta. Irradiation therapy (60Gy) was applied. The patient is alive and without local recurrence, pleural effusion, or distant metastasis (brain and/or bone) 20 months after the operation.
