A study of reservoir implantation--especially with saphenous vein graft catheterization

Intra-arterial infusion chemotherapy is commonly used to treat hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC) and metastatic liver cancer after hepatectomy or in unresectable patients, and it has been adopted at Kurume University Hospital as a treatment for HCC. As complications of reservoir implantation have been encountered, the implantation procedure needs improvement. Procedures were compared in a study with 109 patients who were available for follow-up observation among 116 patients who underwent reservoir implantation. Fifty-six of the patients received intraoperative implantation through the gastroduodenal artery (GDA catheterization), 31 received external catheterization (EXT catheterization) and 22 received catheterization using a saphenous vein graft (SVG catheterization). The complication rates were 75.0%, 9.7% and 13.9% and the one-year patencies were 44.1%, 70.6% and 79.4%, respectively. GDA catheterization was no better than the other two procedures and it had a higher incidence of complications and a lower patency. SVG catheterization achieved good patency, although it had a little higher incidence of complications than external catheterization. It was presumed to be a procedure that would ensure reservoir implantation even in patients with a winding or variation of hepatic artery.