Angiographic embolisation in the management of pelvic haemorrhage

Haemorrhage from pelvic veins during obstetric and gynaecological surgery i s a major cause of morbidity and mortality. In a recent commentary entitled The Seven Surgeons of King's: a fable by Aesop(1), surgeons from different specialties used techniques peculiar to their own practice to treat a woma n with intractable haemorrhage. Could transcatheter arterial embolisation b e the 'eighth surgeon'? We describe two cases where embolisation was used t o control bleeding when local surgical measures had failed and discuss the use of embolisation in obstetrics and gynaecology.