Endoscopic management for bleeding esophageal varices: Sclerotherapy versus sclerotherapy plus band ligation versus band ligation alone. One year experience at a main hospital in Saudi Arabia
Ar. Mohamed et al., Endoscopic management for bleeding esophageal varices: Sclerotherapy versus sclerotherapy plus band ligation versus band ligation alone. One year experience at a main hospital in Saudi Arabia, HEP-GASTRO, 46(26), 1999, pp. 967-970
BAGKGROUND/AIMS: This study was done retrospectively to compare the outcome
of sclerotherapy alone, band ligation alone and band ligation alternating
with sclerotherapy in treatment of esophageal varices.
METHODOLOGY: During 1 year 30 patients were admitted with variceal bleeding
. They received either injection sclerotherapy (8 patients) or band ligatio
n (11 patients), and 11 patients had a combination of both either during fi
rst bleed or during follow-up therapy, which is more than 2 sessions in eac
h group.
RESULTS: The success rate for stopping first bleeding was 100% in the band
ligation and sclerotherapy alone group. The rebleeding rate was 27% in the
combination group, 9% in the band ligation group, and none had rebleeding i
n the sclerotherapy group during follow-up. Eradication of varices was obse
rved in 33% of patients after a second set of sclerotherapy and band ligati
on.
CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed no significant difference between sclerothera
py versus band ligation in stopping initial bleeding or eradication of vari
ces during the follow-up period, but there was a difference in re-bleeding
rates among the three groups.