A rare cause of heart failure

Abstract

Vascular complications of lumbar disk surgery are recognized but rare, iliac arteriovenous fistula is the rarest. It may cause massive shunt flow, leading to congestive heart failure and venous hypertension. We present a case of a 48-year-old woman, who had symptoms of heart failure and with a hypogastric pulsatile abdominal mass that irradiated a continuous murmur extending to the right lumbar region. The abdominal CT showed an arteriovenous fistula between the right common iliac artery and the right common iliac vein near the inferior vena cava caused by surgery for a herniated intervertebral disk.