22505              THROMBOSIS OF FEMORAL ARTERY AND VEIN

The patient was a man aged 63 with a 3-months history of anorexia, loss of weight, abdominal pain and diarrhoea. Examination showed a mass in the right upper quadrant, hepatomegaly and aneurysmal dilatation of each femoral artery. Four days after admission he developed a thrombus in the left femoral vein and heparin treatment was begun. Laparotomy then showed multiple peritoneal metastases of mucin-secreting adenocarcinoma. He died after 2 weeks and at postmortem a carcinoma of the body of the pancreas was found, with spread to the liver, spleen and peritoneum.

The specimen is the left femoral artery and vein. The femoral artery shows an irregularly fusiform aneurysmal dilatation 5 cms in length which is filled with antemortem thrombus. The femoral vein on the left of the jar is also occluded by antemortem thrombus.