Systemic embolization as a complication of transhepatic venography.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Many patients with cirrhosis and portal hypertension demonstrate a right-to-left shunt, caused by development of anastomoses connecting the high-pressure of periesophageal veins with the low-pressure bronchial and/or pulmonary veins at the level of the pulmonary hill. These anastomoses form the pathway by which small Gelfoam particles injected into the coronary or short gastric veins may embolize the systemic arterial ciruclation. Such embolization could have serious consequences, but reports of such complications were not found.