Regional vascular occlusion of the liver by radiological intervention for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma

We believe that regional vascular occlusion of the liver is more effective for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) than transcatheter arterial embolization or percutaneous ethanol injection. We report a patient with HCC in whom regional vascular occlusion by means of radiological intervention was successfully performed. A 68-year-old man was admitted to our hospital because of a HCC measuring 2 cm in diameter in segment VIII (S8). For treatment, we initially performed subsegmental vascular occlusion by simultaneous transcatheter arterial embolization and percutaneous transhepatic portal-venous embolization. Both the arterio-and the portograms taken immediately after the procedure demonstrated the lack of arterial and portal blood supply to S8. Subsequent evaluation of the liver by computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging suggested that S8 had become completely infarcted and the segment appeared wedge-shaped. This finding was histologically confirmed when hepatic subsegmentectomy was performed 5 weeks later. The results in this patients confirmed the results reported by Nakao et al. in 1986 (Hepatocellular carcinoma: Combined hepatic arterial and portal venous embolizationRadiology 161:303–307) suggesting that regional vascular occlusion of the liver was safe and that the effectiveness was comparable to that of hepatic resection.