Abstract
This is a review article on endovascular embolization of head, neck and brain tumors with the aim of helping the clinical management of these lesions. These hypervascular tumours can be associated with significant blood loss during surgery.
Pre-operative embolization of these lesions has been proposed as a method of reducing the intra-operative blood loss.This technique involves the supraselective catheterisation of the feeding arteries of the tumour bed, followed by infusion of embolic particles or liquid agents (acrylic glue or ethanol) to obliterate the tumour bed with the aim of inducing devascularization, and eventually necrosis. Pre-operative embolotherapy for vascular tumours is well-established method, although controversial in terms of its risk-benefit ratio.