Pericardial effusion can occur as a rare complication of radiofrequency ablation for hepatocellular carcinoma near the right atrium, but may resolve spontaneously without sequelae.
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Alerts clinicians to rare CV events during RFA in elderly HCC patients; leaves open incidence and prevention strategies.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a leading cause of cancer in the world. The incidence is increasing by age. Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is widely used for treatment of HCC especially for those in early stage. RFA have some advantages compare to surgery including lower cost, shorter hospital day and lower complication rate. However, there's still some rare but lethal RFA associated adverse events including cardiovascular complication. We hereby reported an elderly patient with HCC in left liver abutting the right atrium. The patient received monopolar RFA for treating HCC and had experienced pericardial effusion during RFA without immediate signs of cardiac tamponade. The HCC was successfully ablated without local recurrence and the pericardial effusion was spontaneously resolved without sequelae.
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Chen et al. (2018) studied this question.
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