ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Gastrointestinal Cancers: Gastric and Esophageal Cancers
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1598271
Preprocedural Computed Tomography Angiography-Guided Transcatheter Arterial Embolization for Managing Esophageal Cancer Bleeding: A Case Series Study
Provisionally accepted
- Xiangyang Central Hospital, Xiangyang, China
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Objective While endoscopy is the first-line treatment for non-variceal upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage, its role in managing upper gastrointestinal tumor bleeding is limited. This study aims to evaluate the effect of computed tomography angiography (CTA)-guided transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) in achieving hemostasis for esophageal cancer bleeding. Methods A retrospective case series was conducted at our hospital, involving eight patients who underwent preprocedural CTA-guided TAE for esophageal cancer bleeding between August 2023 and August 2024. Results Of the eight patients (seven males, mean age 67 ± 12.9 years) who underwent CTA-guided TAE for esophageal cancer bleeding, seven achieved both technical and clinical success. One patient failed to achieve embolization due to missed identification of a pseudoaneurysm in the superior thyroid artery, resulting in death from hemorrhage. Two patients experienced mild chest or neck discomfort, which resolved with conservative management. During follow-up, five patients experienced recurrent hemorrhage, with four dying and one successfully treated with a second TAE. One of the remaining two patients died from disease progression, and the other remained recurrence-free for 270 days. Conclusion CTA-guided TAE demonstrates high technical and clinical success rates for achieving hemostasis in esophageal cancer bleeding with mild and manageable complications.
Keywords: CT angiography, transcatheter arterial embolization, esophageal cancer bleeding, arterial-esophageal fistula, interventional radiology, case series study
Received: 22 Mar 2025; Accepted: 22 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Wu, Wang, Zheng, Cheng, Cui and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xiao-Qi Li, lxq20190125@foxmail.com
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