[Evaluation of the role of angiography in the diagnosis and surveillance of hepatic alveolar echinococcosis].

The authors recall the main pathologic and physiopathologic data necessary to understand the angiographic patterns of hepatic alveolar echinococcosis, by means of a rereading of a personal series of 37 cases. They show that this affection has a diagnostic angiographic shape which associate four signs: avascular aspect of the lesions, regular invasion of vessels, presence of a collateral circulation, absence of neovascularisation. Digestive angiography stays a good diagnostic method for the parasitosis, when epidemiological context, ultrasound or CT scan gave no explicit conclusion. It keeps an interest in the preoperative evaluation and in the supervision of portal vein.