SINCE Gross1 reported the first surgical correction of an aberrant retro-esophageal right subclavian artery with tracheal and esophageal compression in an infant in 1946, surgical correction of this entity has become commonplace. This congenital anomaly is a less frequent cause of tracheal and esophageal obstruction than other aortic arch anomalies in children, and usually remains latent until late adolescence or adult life when dysphagia may appear. In older patients, the safety of ligation of the vessel without flow restoration (which is tolerated well in infants) has remained an unsettled question, especially since recognition of the subclavian steal syndrome as a cause of basilar ischemia.
To our knowledge, the following case is the first case of dysphagia lusoria surgically corrected with lateral sinus percent oxygen monitoring utilized as a method of insuring adequate brain perfusion during surgery.
Report of a Case
The patient, an 18-year-old white girl, was admitted to