Surgical treatment of a rare case of hepatocellular carcinoma with right atrial metastasis: A case report

Anesthetic management for intraoperative acute pulmonary embolism during inferior vena cava tumor thrombus surgery: A case report

BACKGROUND

Acute pulmonary embolism (APE) is a rare and potentially life-threatening condition, even with early detection and prompt management. Intraoperative APE required specific ways for detecting since classic symptoms of APE in the awake patient could not be observed or self-reported by the patient under general anesthesia.

CASE SUMMARY

A 44-year-old man with a history of hepatic cell carcinoma was admitted for radical nephrectomy and tumor thrombectomy due to a newly found kidney tumor with inferior vena cava (IVC) tumor thrombus. APE that occurred during tumor thrombectomy with hypercapnia and desaturation. The capnography combined with the transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) provided a crucial differential diagnosis during the operation. The patient was continuously managed with aggressive intravenous fluid resuscitation and blood transfusion under continuous cardiac output monitoring to maintain hemodynamic stability. He completed the surgery under stable hemodynamics and was extubated after percutaneous mechanical thrombectomy by a certified cardiologist. There were no significant symptoms and signs or obvious discomfort in the patient’s self-report during visits to the general ward.

CONCLUSION

Under general anesthesia for IVC tumor thrombus surgery, a sudden decrease in end-tidal carbon dioxide is the initial indicator of APE, which occurs before hemodynamic changes. When intraoperative APE is suspected, TEE is useful in the diagnosis and monitoring before computer tomography pulmonary angiogram. Timely clinical impression and supportive treatment and intervention should be conducted to obtain a better prognosis.

Hepatocellular Carcinoma With Cardiac Metastasis Presenting as Presyncope

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common primary tumor of the liver that is highly invasive and can even invade the portal and hepatic veins in later stages. In this report, we present one such rare case of HCC invading the right atrium. A 69-year-old male patient recently diagnosed with HCC secondary to hepatitis C presented to the hospital after experiencing an episode of near syncope. On examination, he had a distended abdomen consistent with ascites with positive fluid shift, elevated jugular vein distention (JVD), and bilateral pitting lower extremity edema. He had an elevated alkaline phosphatase of 298 U/L (34-104) with a total bilirubin of 2.7mg/dL (0.3-1) and a D-dimer of 1.67ugFEU/mL (<0.5). On admission, CT scan of the chest and abdomen showed extensive invasion of the liver by neoplasm and a large 7 cm mass extending from the intrahepatic inferior vena cava to the right atrium. A transthoracic echocardiogram confirmed this, which also better visualized the cardiac anatomy. Due to the extent of the disease, the patient ultimately opted for palliative care. The prognosis for patients with HCC who have an invasion of the right atrium remains dismal, with a median survival of only five months. Surgical extraction of the thrombus with resection of the tumor, liver transplantation, and systemic chemotherapy are some of the treatment modalities employed in such patients; however, historically, the median survival has remained only a few months. With the advent of new techniques and a better understanding of the disease, this seems to be changing and a curative approach can now be considered.