HEPATIC VEIN PRESSURE STUDIES FOR EVALUATION OF INTRAHEPATIC PORTAL HYPERTENSION

Abstract

IN OUR evaluation of patients with cirrhosis of the liver we have been studying the "wedge" pressure in the hepatic vein. A team of the medical and surgical service has now had an opportunity to observe this pressure in the hepatic vein during portacaval surgical procedures. A simultaneous measurement of these pressures makes possible an exact evaluation of the hepatic vein wedge pressure as a diagnostic procedure. Up until this time, no correlation with the actual pressure in the portal vein has been reported. In 1951 Myers and Taylor¹ and Friedman and Weiner² determined the wedge pressure in the hepatic vein of animals and correlated this with the portal vein pressure. Wedge hepatic vein pressures in man have been reported by Myers and Taylor * and by Paton, Reynolds, and Sherlock.⁴ We have used their technique of introducing a nylon catheter into an arm vein and passing this