Successful occlusion of multiple pulmonary arteriovenous fistulas using Amplatzer vascular plugs

Pulmonary arteriovenous fistulas, or malformations, are abnormal vascular connections between a pulmonary artery and a pulmonary vein. Clinical presentation may vary from asymptomatic patients to others showing a variety of symptoms such as cyanosis, dyspnea, high output heart failure, hemoptysis and paradoxical embolization. Initially, surgical treatment was the single method of therapy until several percutaneous embolization techniques using coils, coil bags, detachable balloons and devices were established. In this report, we describe a child in whom the new Amplatzer Vascular Plug device was successfully used to close multiple, large pulmonary arteriovenous fistulas.