[Hepatic abscess: image-guided percutaneous drainage. Technique and indications]

Six patients underwent image-guided percutaneous drainage of liver abscesses at the Instituto Nacional de la Nutricion (a tertiary care referral center in Mexico City) in a seven month period. These patients were closely followed in order to evaluate appropriate indications for percutaneous drainage as well as techniques, complications and clinical evolution. Our study group included five males and one female; their mean age was 44.4 years (28-63) and the mean hospitalization time 24.3 days (10-34). We found multiple liver abscesses in three patients, and solitary abscesses in three, two in the left lobe and one in the right lobe. Considering the largest diameter, mean abscess size was 13.7 cm. The most important clinical symptoms were: fever, abdominal pain and malaise, and the most significant laboratory abnormalities were anemia, hypoalbuminemia, leukocytosis and high alkaline phosphatase serum levels. Etiology could be determined in three cases, two were pyogenic abscesses and one amebic. Percutaneous drainage was successful in five out of our six patients (83.3%). Complications included one subcapsular hematoma, without hemodynamic consequences, and one patient with severe upper gastrointestinal tract hemorrhage who required surgery, but we could not entirely demonstrate that the bleeding episode was directly related to the percutaneous drainage.