Selective arterial embolization in the treatment of lesions of the musculoskeletal apparatus.

: The authors describe 42 cases of lesions of the musculoskeletal apparatus (traumatic, pseudoneoplastic or tumorous) in which selective arterial transcatheter percutaneous embolization (SAE) was indicated. In 3 patients SAE was not performed because the angiography had shown it to be too dangerous for the spinal cord. Out of 39 patients 2 were embolized in order to stop unrestrainable hemorrhaging (1 post-traumatic and 1 post-bioptic), 7 in order to reduce intraoperative bleeding, while in 7 cases (aneurysmal bone cyst, angioma of bone) the aim was curative. In the remaining 23 patients SAE was performed for adjuvant (8) or palliative (15) purposes in association with radio-and/or chemotherapy (11). In these last 15 cases the clinical results obtained were good in 67% of the cases, with partial or total regression of pain. Healing was obtained in 100% of the patients treated for curative purposes.