Spontaneous rupture with bleeding is not an infrequent complication of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). From May, 1972 to January, 1987, 56 symptomatic patients with ruptured HCC were managed by plication of the lesion (2 patients), ligation of either the common hepatic artery, CHAL, (39 patients), or selectively, the arterial branch supplying the tumor-bearing lobe of liver, SHAL, (8 patients), and hepatic resection, HR, (7 patients). Effective hemostasis was achieved in 68.1% of patients with the use of hepatic artery ligation (HAL). SHAL provides a comparable control of bleeding but no demonstrable reduction of postoperative organ failure when compared with CHAL. The operative treatment employed had no influence on either the postoperative rates of morbidity, mortality, or survival. However, the rate of hospital mortality was high among the four patients who had emergency anatomical lobectomy, despite the absence of severe cirrhosis. Hepatic artery ligation, either CHAL or SHAL, is a satisfactory definitive hemostatic measure for unresectable HCC when it ruptured. SHAL is probably preferred to routine emergency HR for patients with potentially resectable lesions. Nonetheless, for selected patients with easily accessible lesions, segmentectomy or subsegmentectomy could still be contemplated in the absence of severe cirrhosis.