Abstract
Buerger's disease is a chronic vascular occlusive disease affecting mainly the extremities of young male smokers. It may, however, involve the visceral arteries of inner organs such as brain, heart, kidney and mesenterium. A 40-year-old male patient suffering from Buerger's disease developed severe left back pain shortly after a left upper thoracic sympathectomy (Smithwick), which was performed to treat an ischemic ulceration in the tip of the left index finger. A splenic pseudocyst probably due to infarction was detected by CT and celiac angiography. A splenectomy was successfully performed, and pathological examination of the splenic artery demonstrated chronic inflammatory involvement, probably causing an infarction of the spleen. Two years after returning to his former work, the patient died from trauma. A review of the 17 reported cases of Burger's disease involving digestive organs revealed a tendency toward extremely poor prognosis, unlike that of the usual type of Buerger's disease.
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