Common Carotid Artery Ligation to Minimize Blood Loss During Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Oral and maxillofacial surgery in veterinary medicine carries the risk of severe hemorrhage due to the great vascular supply of the head. Temporary hemostasis can be achieved with the application of pressure or hemostatic agents, but more definitive treatment may be needed to ensure bleeding will not resume once the patient is awake and normotensive. ^1,2 Actively bleeding vessels encountered during maxillofacial surgery may be inaccessible, and vessels may recoil into bone, sometimes preventing definitive ligation. These scenarios may require ligation of the common carotid artery. ¹ The purpose of this paper is to describe how to perform ligation of the common carotid artery in a step-by-step fashion. Both temporary and permanent ligation techniques are described.