In the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma, percutaneous ablation treatments are highly effective and little damage to liver functions. In most cases, percutaneous ablation treatments are performed under the sonographic guidance. However, hepatic tumors in the subphrenic liver dome often cannot be detected on sonography, because of obstruction by the lung. Although an artificial pleural effusion procedure has been reported to be effective to detect tumors in subphrenic liver dome, they are not always effective. In such cases, we showed that an artificial pneumothorax procedure is also an alternative method for the treatment.
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