Rinsho Shinkeigaku (Clinical Neurology)

Case Report

Successful balloon-occluded retrograde transvenous obliteration (B-RTO) in a case of symptomatic epilepsy with hepatic encephalopathy due to non-cirrhotic porto-systemic shunt

Ayumi Shibata, M.D.1), Shigeru Hayashi, M.D.1) and Moeko Noguchi, M.D.2)

1)Department of Internal Medicine, Toyama City Hospital
2)Department of Neurology, Fukui Prefectural Central Hospital

We report a 66-year-old man with hepatic encephalopathy due to a non-cirrhotic porto-systemic shunt during the course of treatment for epilepsy with sodium valproate. The patient developed symptomatic epilepsy after an operation for intracranial arterio-venous malformation at the age of 41, and had been treated with sodium valproate and phenytoin since. At the age of 66, he developed convulsions that were thought to be symptomatic epilepsy with hyperammonemia. Despite sodium valproate having been tapered rapidly and then discontinued, hyperammonemia continued. Abdominal contrast enhanced CT demonstrated a large spleno-renal shunt. Although he was treated with lactulose, he developed encephalopathy with hyperammonemia several times. At the age of 67, we occluded the spleno-renal shunt by balloon-occluded retrograde transvenous obliteration (B-RTO), after which, his clinical symptoms improved, together with normalizing of the ammonia level and EEGs.

(CLINICA NEUROL, 45: 341|345, 2005)
key words: hepatic encephalopathy, porto-systemic shunt, balloon-occluded retrograde transvenous obliteration (B-RTO), hyperammonemia

(Received: 9-Mar-04)