530 - Endovascular Managament of Intractable Oral Bleeding in the Malignant Oral Cavity Tumours : Evaluating the Technical Success, Safety and Outcomes

Purpose: About 10 percent of locally advanced cases undergoing chemoradiotherapy suffer from tumoral hemorrhage and bleeding episodes. surgical management is difficult due to altered anatomy due to prior surgery induced adhesions, radiation induced fibrosis. Intra-arterial embolization is a safe and effective method to control acute bleeding episodes.

This study is done in an apex cancer institute of north India where efficacy, safety and outcomes of the treatment by trans arterial embolization was evaluated for the patients with tumor bleed in oral cavity cancers.

Materials and Methods: In this retrospective study, total number of 100 cases who were admitted with clinically suspected tumoral bleeding were studied from the period of 2018 to 2024.

All patients were evaluated in terms of tumor location, type of pre-embolization undergoing treatment, Nuclear medicine staging, angiographic findings, number and type of vessel embolized by various embolizing agents, duration of hospital stay, recurrence of bleeding, need for re embolization, technical and clinical outcomes.

Results: Technical success was achieved in 100% patients. Most commonly males were affected with mean age group 30-60 years. Most common tumor location was tongue. Tumor blush was the most common angiographic finding with lingual arteries being the most common artery involved. There was no immediate recurrence of bleed within the same duration of stay in hospital. However, in few cases recurrence was noted in the follow up period with need for re embolization in some cases. No major complication was seen in any of the patients.

Conclusion: Intra-arterial embolization is a safe and effective means of treating acute bleeding episodes in the oral cavity tumors with 100 % technical success and improved clinical outcomes.