Objective: The purpose of our study was to evaluate whether the hepatic artery or the left gastric artery is the better route of approach for selective embolization of the right gastric artery before hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy using a port-catheter system.
Subjects and methods: Eighty-six patients (56 men, 30 women; mean age, 62.1 years) with unresectable advanced liver cancer underwent percutaneous implantation of a port-catheter system. In the 75 patients who had not undergone gastrectomy, right gastric artery embolization was performed before port-catheter system placement to prevent gastric mucosal lesions. In 43 patients, the approach for embolization was through a microcatheter inserted from the hepatic artery site, and in the remaining 32 patients, the approach was from the left gastric artery. The success rates of these two groups were compared.
Results: Embolization was successfully accomplished at the first attempt in 72.1% of the 43 patients in whom the microcatheter was inserted from the hepatic artery site. In contrast, in 93.8% of 32 patients, embolization was successfully performed through the left gastric artery. The success rate of embolization was significantly higher in the latter group (p = 0.0173, chi-square test). A second attempt in which the catheter was redirected to another approach, performed on the same day in a majority of patients, resulted in successful embolization in an additional eight patients, with a final success rate of 92.0%.
Conclusion: Embolization of the right gastric artery using microcoils through a microcatheter advanced through the left gastric artery may be the preferred method for the preparation of repeated hepatic artery infusion.