Systemic embolization as a complication of transhepatic venography.

Many patients with cirrhosis and portal hypertension demonstrate a right-to-left shunt, caused by development of anastomoses connecting the high-pressure periesophageal veins with the low-pressure bronchial and/or pulmonary veins at the level of the pulmonary hili. These anastomoses from the pathway by which small Gelfoam particles injected into the coronary or short gastric veins may embolize the systemic arterial circulation. Such embolization could have serious consequences, but reports of such complications have not been found by the authors.