[Aortic valve injury due to blunt trauma--treatment in acute phase]

Aortic valve injury due to blunt trauma is rare and often difficult to diagnose. Therefore, most reported cases are operated on months or years after initial injury. Reported below is the case of a 55-year-old male, who was involved in a head-on collision with a bus. He was transported to Tsukuba Medical Center by ambulance, 34 minutes after the accident. The patient presented acute shock without obvious evidence of hemorrhaging. On physical examination a murmur was detected. The murmur was evaluated by Doppler echocardiography and revealed aortic regurgitation. On further physical examination he had gross hematuria and intratracheal bleeding. Computerized tomography (CT) showed evidence of contusions to his lungs, liver, and kidneys. The individual was diagnosed with an aortic valve injury, causing aortic insufficiency. It was necessary to continuously monitor the patients' hemodynamic state, assessing when conditions to operate were most favorable. However, in the hyper-acute phase the bleeding is difficult to control. We waited for his platelet count to recover before operating on the fifth day. When the patient underwent valve repair using extracorporeal circulation (ECC), aprotinin was added to the procedure. The surgery revealed a large laceration on the right coronary cusp of the aortic valve. Repair to the valve was impossible, so replacement of the aortic valve was required. A Carbomedics mechanical valve (phi 21 mm) was inserted. The patient did well after surgery, and eventually returned to work. To date, in Japan, there are eleven such cases of aortic valve injury on file. However, this is the first reported case that involved operating during the acute phase. This case demonstrates that, with careful evaluation of coexisting injuries and control of bleeding, successful treatment of aortic valve injury using ECC is possible, even in the acute phase.