A Case of Life-Threatening Arteriovenous Malformation Treated with Transcutaneous Embolization

경피적 색전술로 치료한 치명적 동정맥기형

Head and neck arteriovenous malformation usually forms huge mass, cause profuse bleeding or potenially compromise the airway. This bleeding is vulnerable to be uncontrollable and life­threatening. Sometimes it has a high mortality. Although surgical resection is possible in some cases, the morbidity such as a defects of soft tissue is very high and its reconstruction is very difficult. The authors report an 11 year old female patient in whom occlusion of arteriovenous malformation with glue after transcutaneous embolization made a satisfactory results. At the beginning, she was transferred for massive oral bleeding. The bleeding was persistent and it was not possible to remove the packing in spite of many times of embolizations through feeding arteries. The massive bleeding trom the left upper alveolar mucosa compromised the airway and tracheotomy was done. Whenever the hypovolemic shock was occurred in a short time, blood transfusion and cardiopulmonary resucitation were done. To embolize the vascular mass of arteriovenous malformation, as a final trial before operation, the spinal needle was administered through the left upper gingiva under the fluoroscopy. The glue was injected on the target. The bleeding was stopped and we have noticed the absence of nidus on follow-up angiography after 3 weeks. We experienced that some cases of arteriovenous malformation in head & neck revealing the bleeding could be treated with transcutaneous embolization instead of surgical resection.