A forty-three-year-old woman with Budd-Chiari syndrome, who had had transcardiac membranotomy nearly three years earlier, was admitted to hospital with symptoms of abdominal discomfort and subfever for possible recurrence of the condition. Obstructions of the inferior vena cava (IVC) and hepatic veins (HVs) were thought to have recurred, and the obstructive lesions of the HVs were of the long and multiple type. Additionally, she had a high titer for antiphospholipid antibodies. To relieve abdominal discomfort, percutaneous transluminal angioplasty and medical treatment were instituted. Subsequent relief of symptoms was accompanied by an improvement in the date from laboratory investigations.
The authors review 14 cases of Budd-Chiari syndrome associated with antiphospholipid syndrome previously reported in the literature and discuss the therapeutic approaches to the characteristic obstruction lesions of the IVC and HVs.
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