Is It Possible To Be Born With No Pulmonary Artery? How Could The CT Scans Fail To Find It?
I am 41 and for the past 4 years the diagnosis has been massive pulmonary embolism - I went for an angiogram on the blood clot in preparation for surgery and the doctor and radiologist could not find the artery and now are concluding that I was not born with a pulmonary artery in my left lung - how can years of ct scans not diagnosis the missing artery sooner?
There is a condition called pulmonary artery sling which is created by anomalous origin of the left pulmonary artery from the posterior aspect of the right pulmonary artery. The anomalous left pulmonary artery courses over the right mainstem bronchus and then from right to left, posterior to the trachea or carina and anterior to the esophagus, to reach the hilum of the left lung. This condition or any similar anomalous left pulmonary artery must be the case with you. It might have been missed on earlier CT scans due to technical reasons such ans larger slice thickness.
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Is It Possible To Be Born With No Pulmonary Artery? How Could The CT Scans Fail To Find It?
Hi, Thanks for writing in. There is a condition called pulmonary artery sling which is created by anomalous origin of the left pulmonary artery from the posterior aspect of the right pulmonary artery. The anomalous left pulmonary artery courses over the right mainstem bronchus and then from right to left, posterior to the trachea or carina and anterior to the esophagus, to reach the hilum of the left lung. This condition or any similar anomalous left pulmonary artery must be the case with you. It might have been missed on earlier CT scans due to technical reasons such ans larger slice thickness.