Popliteal artery pseudoaneurysm in a child due to gunshot injury

Abstract

This is an ease of a 12-year-old boy who sustained gunshot injury to his left knee region. After initial debridement and closure of his wounds, the patient presented seven weeks later with a large pulsatile swelling of his lower thigh and painful flexion deformity of his knee. Angiography revealed large pseudoaneurysm of the popliteal artery and arteriovenous communication. The patient underwent successful repair of his popliteal artery with autologous long saphenous vein graft. The initial diagnostic difficultly in these cases, the different types of injury and the therapeutic modalities of similar cases in the literature arc discussed.