Case 7, Abdominal Anomaly or Pathology         (Return to Case List)
This patient recently underwent a percutaneous coronary angioplasty. The video depicts a coronally reformatted CT. It starts at a median sagittal section and progresses toward the right. Play the video frame by frame and identify what is represented by the material marked with yellow asterisks? Hint: what can happen if the percutaneous arterial puncture occurs proximal to the level of the femoral head? Click on the drop-down arrow to see the answer. By the way, the patient has received intravascular contrast.



As discussed in Clinical Sidelights to Core Concepts in Anatomy for Chapter 110, if the attempt to place a catheter in the common femoral artery results in the vessel being stuck proximal to the site where it overlies the femoral head, or in a puncture of the external iliac artery, then it becomes difficult to stop bleeding from the puncture site when the catheter is removed at the end of the procedure. Such bleeding may be profuse, leading to a large retroperitoneal hematoma, which is marked by yellow asterisks in this patient. The fact that there is no contrast in the hematoma means that the bleeding has stopped.