Resolution of an aortic thrombus under anticoagulant therapy

In a 50-year-old woman, admitted because of a renal infarction, a 10-cm lon g floating, highly mobile thrombus with a diameter of 15-20 mm in the desce nding aorta was detected by transoesophageal echocardiography and magnetic resonance imaging. She was a poor surgical candidate due to obstructive lun g disease and obesity. Under intravenous heparinization with prothrombin ti me test values between 80 and 100 s. followed by oral anticoagulation with international normalized ratio values between 3.0 and 4.0. the thrombus res olved after 10 weeks and no recurrence occurred over the next 30 months. (C ) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.