Pop goes the tumour! Spontaneous haemorrhage of a hepatocellular carcinoma tumour

Nelson Agostinho; Harinder K Bains; Cameron P Douglas; James Walcott; Kilian G M Brown; Robert Rawson; Charbel Sandroussi; Meegodage Ruwan Suramal Perera

doi:10.1093/jscr/rjaa598

Pop goes the tumour! Spontaneous haemorrhage of a hepatocellular carcinoma tumour

J Surg Case Rep. 2021 Jan 31;2021(1):rjaa598. doi: 10.1093/jscr/rjaa598. eCollection 2021 Jan.

Authors

Nelson Agostinho¹, Harinder K Bains¹, Cameron P Douglas¹, James Walcott², Kilian G M Brown², Robert Rawson³, Charbel Sandroussi², Meegodage Ruwan Suramal Perera¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of General Surgery, Dubbo Base Hospital, Dubbo, NSW, Australia.
² Department of Upper Gastrointestinal and Hepatobiliary Surgery, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Camperdown, NSW, Australia.
³ Department of Tissue Pathology and Diagnostic Oncology, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Camperdown, NSW, Australia.

Abstract

An 84-year-old man presented to a rural hospital in Australia with haemodynamic instability and abdominal pain. Investigation revealed haemorrhage from a lesion in his liver-an incidental finding of a hepatocellular carcinoma. Initial resuscitation and damage control surgery was performed at the peripheral hospital prior to transfer to a tertiary centre 386 km away for the second stage of management. The second stage of management included interventional radiological embolization of the bleeding liver vessel and subsequent resection of the liver tumour. This was all undertaken with new policies in place to limit the spread of infection at the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic.

Keywords: hepatobiliary; liver lesion; spontaneous haemorrhage; upper gastrointestinal surgery.

Publication types

Case Reports