Case report of splenic artery steal syndrome: demonstration of portal hyperflow mechanism by anatomic variant of the splenic artery and correlation with Doppler rates.

We report the case of a liver transplant recipient who developed a "splenic artery steal syndrome" (SASS) successfully treated by partial splenic embolization (PSE). Interestingly, because the patient presented an anatomic variant of the splenic artery (SA) originating from the superior mesenteric artery (SMA), improvement was observed in hepatic artery (HA) flow following PSE that could only be explained by decreased portal perfusion and not by the derivation from the SA.