title: Calm Before the Storm: An Uncomplicated Epicardial Lead Extraction Resulting in DIC and Patient Demise.
abstract: A previously stable 77-year-old man with significant cardiac history underwent an uneventful extraction of a Citrobacter-infected and eroded pacemaker lead. His postoperative course was acutely complicated by respiratory failure and quickly progressed into disseminated intravascular coagulation, acute renal failure, shock liver, and ventricular tachycardic arrest. I believe that this is the first case report of such a drastic turn of events after a routine pacemaker lead extraction.
authors.affiliation: From the Division of Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.
authors.forename: Wendy K
authors.initials: WK
authors.lastname: Bernstein
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D020878:Device Removal / Q000009:adverse effects*; D004211:Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology; D056149:Epicardial Mapping / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000295:instrumentation*; D017809:Fatal Outcome; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology; D016459:Prosthesis-Related Infections / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery*