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A 76-year-old man was admitted to our hospital for investigation of an apparent abdominal aortic aneurysm detected during treatment for epididymitis. A chest X-ray showed miliary shadows in the bilateral lung fields strongly suggestive of tuberculosis. The diameter of the aneurysm increased, and examinations showed impending rupture of a pseudoaneurysm. However, a definitive disease pathogenesis was not obtained before surgery. We performed a subemergency operation, which revealed an infrarenal abdominal pseudoaneurysm caused by tuberculosis. The pseudoaneurysm appeared to have resulted from direct extension of tuberculous lymphadenitis to the aortic wall, which ruptured. We review 24 other cases of tuberculous aortic aneurysms surgically treated in Japan before 2004.

We describe herein the successful treatment of a patient with chronic atrial fibrillation (AF) associated with mitral valve stenosis and regurgitation, achieved by performing a modified maze procedure on the left atrium alone. The patient was a 51-year-old man who had suffered from intractable AF for 17 years, causing multiple cerebral emboli and palpitations. He had undergone open mitral commissurotomy and balloon commissurotomy 15 and 7 years ago, respectively. On admission, an echocardiogram revealed mitral valve restenosis and thrombosis in the left atrial appendage. Prosthetic valvular replacement was performed following isolation of all pulmonary veins with cryoablation to the posterior wall of the left atrium and excision of the left atrial appendage. Postoperatively, the AF disappeared and echocardiogram demonstrated a left atrial kick in the mitral valvular inflow without any evidence of thrombosis in the left atrium. Thus, we believe that our modified “left side only” maze procedure is a simple and efficient method for the treatment of chronic AF with mitral valve disease.