Cardiac tamponade due to coronary artery rupture after pulmonary resection.

We present a case of cardiac tamponade after lung resection. A 68-year-old man underwent single-staged bilateral lung resection (right wedge resection and left S8 segmentectomy) for metastatic lung tumors from rectal cancer and lost consciousness on postoperative day 4. Because an enhanced whole-body computed tomography scan showed pericardial effusion as the only abnormal finding, we performed rethoracotomy, which revealed that the cardiac tamponade was due to coronary artery rupture. We suggest that it would be more reasonable to approach the pericardial space by rethoracotomy rather than median sternotomy because exploration of the surgical site is the first essential step.