Discussion
Diagnosis With Brief Discussion
- Diagnosis
- Pulmonary lipiodol embolism
- Radiologic Findings
- Mediastinal window setting of chest CT shows ill-defined focal consolidation with internal high densities in posteromedial portion of right lower lobe on both pre- and post- contrast enhanced images. There is also small amount of right pleural effusion.
Lung setting of the chest CT images shows ill-defined focal consolidation with surrounding ground-glass opacities.
- Brief Review
- Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) with a mixture of lipiodol is treatment for unresectable HCC. TACE is intended to deliver a highly concentrated dose of chemotherapy to tumor cells, prolong the contact time between the chemotherapeutic agents and the cancer cells.
Although TACE is relatively safe, it has relevance to rare but serious complications. For example, hepatic infarction, hepatic abscess, acute hepatic failure, spontaneous rupture of the tumor, and acute renal failure have been reported.
Pulmonary lipiodol embolism is also a rare but fatal complication associated with TACE. The incidence of symptomatic pulmonary lipiodol embolism ranged between 0.05-1.8%. Symptoms of pulmonary lipiodol embolism are dyspnea, hemoptysis and cough, and the clinical course is most severe 2-10 days after TACE. The time required to reach toxic concentrations of fatty acids and the slow release from the tumor into the pulmonary circulation might be cause of the delayed onset. The followings have been considered as the risk factors of pulmonary lipiodol embolism: the dose of lipiodol injected (> 20 mL of lipiodol or > 0.3 mL/kg), the presence of an arteriovenous shunt, and fistula between the inferior phrenic artery and an artery of the pulmonary circulation.
The effective and targeted therapy of lipiodol embolism had not known yet. Immediate symptomatic care should be started including oxygen supply, methylprednisolone, heparin, ventilator care for respiratory failure, and, careful monitoring of the patient?셲 respiratory status until his symptoms disappeared.
The radiological finding of pulmonary lipiodol embolism is focal or diffuse consolidation or ground-glass opacities. Chest radiograph shows an ill-defined increased opacities and chest CT scan reveals newly developed lipiodol-like high density materials in the lung parenchyma of after TACE.
- References
- 1. Chung JW, Park JH, Im JG, Han JK, Han MC. Pulmonary oil embolization after transcatheter oily chemoembolization of hepatocellular carcinoma. Radiology 1993;187:689-693
2. Ming-Tzer Lin, Ping-Hung Kuo. Pulmonary lipiodol embolism after transcatheter arterial chemoembolization for hepatocellular carcinoma. JRSM Short Rep. 2010;1:6
3. Woo Ri Park, et al. Pulmonary lipiodol embolism after transcatheter chemoembolization for hepatocellular carcinoma. Tubercolosis and respiratory disease. 2011;1:50-54
- Keywords
- Lung, Embolic, Thromboembolic,