Treatment of a rare recurrent pulmonary arteriovenous malformation after multiple embolization by robotic-assisted thoracoscopic surgery

Abstract

Pulmonary arteriovenous malformations (PAVMs) are a rare pulmonary arteriovenous direct traffic vascular malformation, which directly connect the pulmonary artery to the pulmonary vein without pulmonary capillary bed. Currently, surgical resection and percutaneous transcatheter embolization are the main mode of treatment. Embolization is gradually becoming the preferred treatment for people with PAVMs, because it is less invasive and easy to repeat. We describe a case of PAVMs with hemoptysis that relapsed again after three times of embolization and then only presented new symptoms of transient ischemic attack. Finally, the patient was treated by Da Vinci robotic-assisted thoracoscopic surgery, and there were no obvious post-operative complications and recurrence. It is the first report of multiple recurrent complex PAVMs and we present our experience with the treatment of recurrent PAVMs.