A NOVEL THERAPEUTIC APPROACH FOR RECTAL VARICES - A CASE-REPORT OF RECTAL VARICES TREATED WITH DOUBLE BALLOON-OCCLUDED EMBOLOTHERAPY

We present a patient with continuous melena, diagnosed as rectal varic es bleeding, She had a history of esophageal varices, which was treate d by endoscopic ligation therapy, Eight years after the treatment of e sophageal varices, the continuous melena began. Colonoscopic examinati on showed that the melena was caused by rectal varices, which were so severe that they could not be treated by either endoscopic sclerothera py or surgical devascularization. Taking into considering the overall risk of treating rectal varices, we chose the approach of double ballo on-occluded embolotherapy (DBOE) with 5% ethanolamine oleate with iopa modol as a liquid embolic material, DBOE is one of the interventional radiology techniques (Morita et al., Acta Hepatol Jpn 1994;35:109-120) , but in this case was a completely new and novel clinical procedure f or rectal varices, After the DBOE therapy, the condition of rectal var ices was markedly improved, Thus, DBOE might be a new tool for treatin g inoperable rectal varices.