Hepatic Arterial Disease

Hepatic arterial disease is rare and difficult to diagnose, but it can cause serious liver damage. Hepatic artery occlusion may result from injury during biliary surgery or may be caused by emboli, neoplasms, blunt trauma or radiation. The symptoms of this disease can cause severe upper abdominal pain with or without signs of circulatory shock. Hepatic artery aneurysms are extra hepatic in three quarters of cases and intrahepatic in one-quarter. They usually cause bleeding into the biliary tree, intestine and are the best diagnosed by arteriography. Patients usually survive this disease if the liver and portal blood supplies are normal.