To explore the characteristics and the preventive measures of skin injury after interventional embolization of internal thoracic artery (ITA) participating in the blood supply of liver cancer.

ITA embolization was performed in 26 hepatic carcinoma patients confirmed to be the tumor blood supply arteries by angiography. All of the 26 patients had received TACE treatment for 2 to 6 times, and 5 of them had received liver resection. A total of 16 patients received ITA embolization by lipiodol antineoplastic emulsion, but lipiodol and Gelfoam were used in the other 10 patients. Eight cases received super selective embolization with micro-catheter. Observe and follow-up the change of the anterior chest wall skin.

Twenty-four of the 26 patients received RITA embolization, 3 received LITA embolization, and 1 patient received both RITA and LITA embolization. After interventional therapy, 19 patients experienced different degree of burning sense and stabbing pain in the skin of anterior chest wall and liver area. Obvious skin injury occurred in 5 cases, and 3 of them appeared damaged skin rupture, and 1 case got secondary infection. All of the 5 patients got non-selective ITA embolization with lipiodol antineoplastic emulsion, and they all healed in 1—4 months.

Non-selective ITA embolization with lipiodol antineoplastic emulsion is the main cause of the skin damage.