Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Nov 16, 2021; 9(32): 9954-9959
Published online Nov 16, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i32.9954
Rare location and drainage pattern of right pulmonary veins and aberrant right upper lobe bronchial branch: A case report
Fu-Qiang Wang, Rui Zhang, Han-Lu Zhang, Yun-Hai Mo, Yu Zheng, Guang-Hao Qiu, Yun Wang
Fu-Qiang Wang, Han-Lu Zhang, Yu Zheng, Guang-Hao Qiu, Yun Wang, Department of Thoracic Surgery, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan Province, China
Rui Zhang, Department of Thoracic Surgery, Chengdu Seventh People’s Hospital, Chengdu 610213, Sichuan Province, China
Yun-Hai Mo, Department of Radiology, Chengdu Seventh People’s Hospital, Chengdu 610213, Sichuan Province, China
Author contributions: Wang FQ and Zhang R contributed equally to this work; Wang FQ, Zhang R and Wang Y designed and performed the research; Zhang HL contributed analytic tools; Mo YH, Zheng Y and Qiu GH analyzed the data; Wang FQ wrote the paper; Wang Y revised the paper; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the Key Research Project of Sichuan Province, No. 2020YFS0249; and the National Key Research Project of China, No. 2017YFC0113502.
Informed consent statement: Informed written consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this report and any accompanying images.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yun Wang, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Thoracic Surgery, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, No. 37 Guoxue Alley, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan Province, China. yunwwang@yeah.net
Received: June 11, 2021
Peer-review started: June 11, 2021
First decision: July 15, 2021
Revised: August 9, 2021
Accepted: September 19, 2021
Article in press: September 19, 2021
Published online: November 16, 2021
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Complex aberration in lung is rare, which may increase risk of vascular injury and cause ligation of wrong pulmonary vein or bronchus by mistake during lung surgery, and result in sever complication like pulmonary congestion or atelectasis.

CASE SUMMARY

A 44-year-old female was admitted for a ground glass nodule (24 mm in diameter) in her right upper lobe. Video-assisted thoracoscopic (VATS) right upper lobectomy with lymph nodes dissection was performed. During operation, we simultaneously identified extremely rare aberrations of right preeparterial bronchus, right upper lobe vein behind pulmonary artery and right middle lobe vein drained into left atrium in this patient. The patient was well recovered and discharged at the postoperative-day 4.

CONCLUSION

Preoperatively, three-dimensional reconstruction can help to identify inconspicuous variation of pulmonary vessels and bronchus effectively. During lung surgery, if anatomic aberration is suspected, careful dissection of vessels and bronchus will help to confirm whether there is an aberration or not.

Keywords: Thoracic surgery, Video-assisted surgery, Anatomic variation, Three-dimensional reconstruction, Case report

Core Tip: Complex aberration in lung is rare but inappropriate management of aberration may result in severe complications. In this case, we presented an extremely rare aberrations of right preeparterial bronchus, right upper lobe vein behind pulmonary artery and right middle lobe vein drained into left atrium simultaneously identified in one patient. This case highlights the importance of preoperative three-dimensional reconstruction and careful skeletonization and identification of aberrant anatomic structures during surgery.