Effectiveness of arterial embolization procedure in uterine cancer patients

Patients with late stage gynecologic malignancies occasionally develop massive pelvic hemorrhage, and management of the hemorrhage is often difficult. Transcatheter arterial embolization with an absorbable gelatin sponge following the Seldinger method was performed to control hemorrhage in five patients with cancer of the uterine cervix. Pelvic arteriograms of five patients showed no further extravasation and their bleeding ceased. No patients died of pelvic hemorrhage, and all of them eventually died as a result of the original disease within two years of the procedure. As for complications of this procedure, slight fever (3/5) and minimal lumbar pain (2/5) were noticed, which were easily controlled by an indomethacin suppository. Based on these findings, this therapeutic embolization method proved to be useful in the management of massive pelvic hemorrhage in patients with cervical cancer.