ABSTRACT

The initial descriptions of the clinical syndrome of chronic thrombotic obstruction of the major pulmonary arteries appeared during the 1950s (1-4). Later that same decade, Hurwitt et al. reported the first surgical attempt to remove adherent thrombus from the pulmonary vessels, thereby establishing a distinction between acute and chronic thromboembolic disease and suggesting that an endarterectomy would be necessary if surgery for this unusual disease was to be successful (5).