Congenital intrahepatic portosystemic venous shunt: sonographic and magnetic resonance imaging.

Abstract

We report an intrahepatic portosystemic venous shunt (IPVS) detected by ultrasound in an asymptomatic newborn. The lesion, which was further documented using color Doppler ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), had almost totally disappeared 6 months later without any treatment. Intrahepatic portosystemic venous shunts (IPVS) are uncommon and their etiology is controversial. Some cases of IPVS have been reported in the literature, most of them in adult patients with portal hypertension and cirrhosis of the liver. However, only scattered reports describe IPVS in the absence of liver pathology. A revision of the proposed etiologies of IPVS is made and the usefulness of gray-scale and color Doppler sonography and MRI in diagnosing IPVS is discussed.