Historical Background Thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS) is recognized to encompass three conditions: (1) neurogenic TOS, caused by compression of the brachial plexus nerve roots within the scalene triangle, subcoracoid space,…
Historical Background The first surgeon to repair a thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm (TAAA) was Etheredge in 1955 in a patient with a Type IV TAAA using a homograft. In 1956 DeBakey…
Historical Background Reconstruction of the subclavian arteries via thromboendarterectomy was first described by Cate and Scott in 1957 and a year later, Crawford, DeBakey, and Fields described the technique of…
Historical Background The first anatomic descriptions of the thoracic outlet can be traced to 150 ad when Galen identified the presence of a cervical rib in human dissections. However, it…
Historical Background Although arterial compression represents the least common type of thoracic outlet syndrome, developmental anomalies of the thoracic outlet were probably first recognized in patients with arterial complications. As…
Historical Background Subclavian-axillary vein thrombosis, also referred to as Paget-Schroetter syndrome or “effort thrombosis,” refers to primary thrombosis of the subclavian vein at the costoclavicular junction. Primary subclavian-axillary vein thrombosis…
Historical Background Savory was the first to describe a patient with signs and symptoms suggesting occlusive disease involving the aortic arch vessels. Nearly 20 years later, in 1875, Broadbent chronicled…
Historical Background Surgical approaches to the aortic arch vessels had been described in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1958 DeBakey and associates described the first successful surgical…
Historical Background Shimizu and Sano first described surgical repair of an atherosclerotic aortic arch branch vessel lesion in 1951. Initially, open surgical repair was performed via a transthoracic approach, but…
Historical Background Balloon angioplasty of the carotid artery was first described in the late 1970s as an intervention for carotid artery stenosis. It was proposed as an alternative to carotid…
