Pulmonary Embolectomy

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Abstract
TRENDELENBURG,1 in 1908, first proposed the possibility of embolectomy for patients with massive pulmonary embolism. He attempted his operation upon 3 patients but was unsuccessful in each.The first successful pulmonary embolectomy was performed in 1924 by Kirschner.2 Although sporadic reports of successful embolectomies came from Europe, it was not until 1958 that the first embolectomy with a surviving patient was reported from America. This report, by Steenburg et al.,3 describes the classic pulmonary embolectomy performed without the use of cardiopulmonary bypass.The availability of reliable extracorporeal circulation led to the reports by Sharp,4 and Cooley et al.5 and subsequently . . .