Eleven cases of postoperative hepatic infarction following pancreato-biliary surgery.

Background: Postoperative hepatic infarction is rare; therefore, clinical characteristics and outcomes of postoperative hepatic infarction after pancreatobiliary surgery have not been obvious.

Methods: Eleven patients encountered hepatic infarction after pancreato-biliary surgery. Management, clinical course, and outcome of these 11 patients were retrospectively analyzed.

Results: Possible causes of the hepatic infarction were inadvertent injury of the hepatic artery during lymph node dissection in five patients, right hepatic artery ligation in two patients, long-term clamp of the hepatic artery during hepatic arterial reconstruction in two patients, suturing for bleeding from the right hepatic artery in one patient, and celiac axis compression syndrome in one patient. Five of the 17 infarcts extended for one whole section of the liver, and distribution of the other 12 was less than one section. Ten patients discharged from hospital; however, one patient died of sepsis of unknown origin.

Conclusions: Attention should be paid to inadvertent injury of hepatic artery to prevent hepatic infarction. Hepatic infarctions after pancreato-biliary surgery seldom extend to the entire liver and most of them are able to be treated without intervention.