In the United States each year about 15,000 patients develop symptoms of venous congestion of the head and neck due to occlusion of the superior vena cava (SVC) or innominate veins. SVC syndrome is caused by malignant tumors of the…
Historical Background In 1757 Hunter was the first to describe a patient with compression of the superior vena cava (SVC) by a large syphilitic aortic aneurysm leading to thrombosis. In 1954 Schechter reported a series of 400 patients with SVC…
Compression of the left renal vein (LRV) between the superior mesenteric artery (SMA) and the abdominal aorta was first described by Grant in 1937, who found the anatomic relationship analogous to a nut in a nutcracker. The first clinical report…