A 27-year-old Taiwanese woman (gravida 6, para 2) was referred to our institution at 17 weeks' gestation with a presumptive diagnosis of placenta previa accreta. Her past obstetric history was significant for one Cesarean delivery and three uterine curettages for abortions. On gray-scale imaging, the presence of multiple large (the largest vascular channels measured 8.4 × 2.5 cm), irregular lacunar spaces within the placental parenchyma was noted and graded as a 3 + lacunar pattern 1 . Blood was observed to be moving in one of these huge venous lakes in a whorled manner with marked turbulent flow (> 16 cm /s) ( Figure 1) and tended to have a characteristic 'whooshing' sound when listened to with pulsed Doppler. Color Doppler ultrasound and power Doppler further defined this abnormal tornado pattern (Figure 2).Marked intraparenchymal placental vascular spaces seem to correlate with the depth of invasion and appear most often in cases of placenta percreta. Finberg and Williams 1 reported that of their four patients who had grade 3 + lacunar vascularity, three had placenta percreta. After careful counseling, the patient elected to terminate the pregnancy because of fear of significantly increased maternal mortality and morbidity as the pregnancy progressed. Massive blood loss was anticipated because antepartum color Doppler ultrasound revealed a diffuse lacunar flow pattern 2,3 . As the fetus was considered to be non-viable, prophylactic selective embolization of the anterior division of the hypogastric arteries was performed in the radiology department's angiography suite prior to Cesarean section in an attempt to reduce intraoperative blood loss 4 . Initially, small pieces (2 × 2 × 2 mm) of gelfoam absorbable gelatin sponge particles (Pharmacia and Upjohn, Kalamazoo, MI, USA) were used because of their temporary occlusion effect. However, although a large number of gelfoam pledgets were carefully injected, the hemostatic effect was unsatisfactory because of the high perfusion pressure due to extensive hypervascularity. Metallic coils (3 × 0.5 cm, Cook, Inc., Bloomington, IN, USA) were then injected which successfully occluded the bilateral anterior division of the hypogastric arteries. Immediately after arterial embolization, the patient was transferred to the operating room, and a non-viable fetus of 250 g was delivered through a high fundal vertical uterine incision. Elective hysterectomy was then performed. The estimated blood loss was 350 mL. Postoperative convalescence was satisfactory. A pathology study confirmed the diagnosis of placenta previa accreta/increta.The advent of obstetric ultrasound, color Doppler and power Doppler imaging has now enabled placenta previa accreta to