Abstract
The authors analyzed 30 patients whose celiac artery or its branches were dissected during the procedure of transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and were followed up angiographically. The incidence of arterial dissection was 1.25%. The dissection occurred most frequently in the celiac artery (40% 12/30) and the proper hepatic artery(28% 7/30). The frequency of arterial dissection was affected by the status of the vessel and the experience of the operator. The follow-up angiography revealed complete recanalization in 40% (12/30), irregularity and narrowing of the lumen in 23% (7/30), pseudoaneurysm formation in 23%(7/30), and complete obstruction in 13% (4/30) of the cases. The rate of recanalization in the celiac artery was lower than that of any other arteries in our series. Recamalization to a certain degree without therapeutic intervention was observed in 72% of the dissected arteries enabling and contributing to subsequent successful TAE within 2 months in 78% of the patients with the dissection.