title: Spontaneous healing of chylous ascites after abdominal aortic aneurysm repair.
abstract: Postoperative chylous ascites is a rare complication of aortic surgery. This report presents a patient with chylous ascites after abdominal aneurysmectomy. After a retrospective analysis of full blood count measurements, we observed an association between the number of lymphocytes in the patient's total blood count and the development and evaluation of chylous ascites. We believe that this hypothesis might be helpful, as it suggests that the number of lymphocytes in a patient's total blood count may be used as a prognostic factor for the development of chylous ascites. Furthermore, our patient appears to be of interest from a therapeutical point of view, since repeated therapeutic paracenteses alone were sufficient in treating chylous ascites, a finding in contradiction to international literature.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Vascular Surgery and Cytology, Konstantopoulio-Agia Olga General Hospital, Athens, Greece. maxipsilos@hotmail.com
authors.forename: D G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Parthenis
authors.forename: K I
authors.initials: KI
authors.lastname: Paraskevas
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Staramos
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Spathi
authors.forename: D S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Georgopoulos
mesh_terms: D017544:Aortic Aneurysm, Abdominal / Q000601:surgery*; D001772:Blood Cell Count; D019917:Blood Vessel Prosthesis Implantation; D002915:Chylous Ascites / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D018655:Lymphocyte Count; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019152:Paracentesis; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011379:Prognosis; D012008:Recurrence; D012075:Remission, Spontaneous; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016312:Treatment Refusal