Management of complications of first instance of hepatic trauma in a liver surgery unit: Portal vein ligation as a conservative therapeutic strategy (original) (raw)

Background According to the National Trauma Data Bank, the liver, after the spleen, is the first most injured organ in closed abdominal trauma. Methods From June 2010 to December 2015 we observed in our department of Hepato-biliary Surgery and Liver Transplant Unit of the A.O.R.N. A. Cardarelli of Naples 40 patients affected by hepatic trauma. In our retrospective study, we review our experience and propose portal vein ligation (PVL) as a first – line strategy for damage control surgery (DCS) in liver trauma. Results 26/40 patients (65%) which received gauze-packing represented our study group. In 10 cases out of 26 patients (38,4%) the abdominal packing was enough to control the damage. In 7 cases (18,4%) we performed a liver resection. In 7 cases, after de-packing, we adopted PVL to achieve DCS. Trans Arterial Embolization was chosen in 6 patients. 2 of them were discharged 14 days later without performing any other procedure. In 3 cases we had to perform a right epatectomy in sec...