ABSTRACT

This study retrospectively evaluated ultrasonography-guided (US-guided) percutaneous thrombin injection for the treatment of postcatheterization femoral and brachial artery pseudoaneurysms.

Fifty-five patients with postcatheterization femoral artery (n=53) or brachial artery (n=2) pseudoaneurysms were treated using US-guided human thrombin (500 IU/mL) injection. Pseudoaneurysm size, thrombin dose, therapy outcome, and complications were documented. Follow-up color Doppler US was performed 7 and 30 days after treatment. Short-duration supplemental compression was applied to six patients at the first week follow-up examination after a reinjection of thrombin had failed.

Mean pseudoaneurysm volume was 20.3±18.7 cm3. The mean injected thrombin dose was 478±238 IU. Thirty-eight (69.1%) of the 55 pseudoaneurysms were thrombosed with a single injection, and 11 of 17 pseudoaneurysms were thrombosed after a second injection. All (100%) of the 41 pseudoaneurysms that were diagnosed within the first two weeks of postcatheterization were successfully treated. The overall primary success rate was 89.1% (49 of 55 pseudoaneurysms). Supplemental compression promoted thrombosis in four of the six patients who had treatment failure with thrombin injection. The secondary success rate was 96.4% (53 of 55 pseudoaneurysms). There were no complications.

US-guided thrombin injection was most successful within the first two weeks, and the supplemental compression might aid in the closure of partially thrombosed pseudoaneurysms.

Keywords: pseudoaneurysm, therapeutic embolization, thrombin