[The spontaneous rupture of a hepatocarcinoma. A rare cause of hemoperitoneum].

The paper reports four cases of spontaneous rupture of hepatocarcinoma which were brought to the authors' attention together with the resulting hemoperitoneum. Following a short review of the literature, the authors focus on the relations between hepatocarcinoma and liver cirrhosis, on the causes which lead to the rupture of hepatocarcinoma and on its diagnosis, underlining the importance of abdominal scan with ultrasonic-guided needle biopsy. The paper stresses that, where the patient's general and local conditions allow, surgery should take the form of typical or atypical hepatic resection, and affirms that ligature of the hepatic artery associated with local hemostatic measures loads to a high percentage of early peri- or postoperative mortality, as well encouraging the early recurrence of hemorrhage.