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After delineating hepatic arterial flow in 20 patients, we dispute the concept that hepatic arteries are end arteries. Selective arteriography shows retrohepatic arterial flow 10 hours after interruption of hepatic arteries. When either the right or the left hepatic artery is interrupted adjacent to the liver, intrahepatic translobar vessels establish flow in the ligated system. Such intrahepatic vessels between the right and left rami cannot be portrayed by cadaver liver perfusions, nor are they apparent on arteriograms of normal subjects. If the common hepatic artery is interrupted, revascularization occurs through inferior phrenic, pancreaticoduodenal and intercalary de novo arteries. Hepatic necrosis after hepatic-artery ligation in man is rare if portal-vein flow and oxygenation are optimum until arterial flow is reconstituted. Complete dearterialization of the human liver cannot be accomplished by simple ligature or excision. (N Engl J Med 290:993–996, 1974)
Mays et al. (Thu,) studied this question.