Thoracic aortic injury during laparoscopic fundoplication for reflux esophagitis.

A 72-year-old man with reflux esophagitis visited our department with a chief complaint of coughing at night. Since he had a large sliding esophageal hiatal hernia that was increasing in size, he underwent laparoscopic fundoplication. While dissecting the left side of the esophagus with laparosonic coagulating shears, the wall of the thoracic aorta started to bleed. The procedure was urgently converted to open surgery, and the pinhole aortic injury site was suture-obliterated. Thereafter Toupet fundoplication was performed, and the patient did not develop any postoperative complications. To our knowledge, only one other case of aortic injury unrelated to trocar insertion has been reported.