title: [Portal hypertension. Evidence-based guide].
abstract: Treatment of portal hypertension has evolved widely during the last decades. Advances in physiopathology have allowed better application of therapeutic options and also have permitted to know the natural history of varices and variceal bleeding, predicting which patients have a higher risk of bleeding. It also permits probability of designing patient treatment. According to liver function and subadjacent liver disease, it is possible to offer different alternatives within the three possible scenarios (primary prophylaxis, acute bleeding episode, and secondary prophylaxis). For primary prophylaxis, pharmacotherapy offers the best choice. Endoscopic banding is also growing in these scenarios and probably will be accepted in the near future. For the acute bleeding episode, endoscopic therapy (sclerosis and/or bands) and/or pharmacologic therapy (octreotide, terlipresin) represent best choice, considering TIPS as a rescue option. Surgery is not used routinely in this scenario in most centers. For secondary prophylaxis, pharmaco- and endoscopic therapy are first-line treatments, while TIPS and surgery as second-line treatments. TIPS is mainly used in patients on a waiting list for liver transplantation. Surgery offers good results for low-risk patients, with good liver function and with portal blood-flow preserving procedures (selective shunts, extensive devascularizations). Liver transplantation is recommended for patients with poor liver function because together with portal hypertension, it treats subadjacent liver disease.
authors.affiliation: Clínica de Hipertensión Portal, Departamento de Cirugía, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, México, DF.
authors.forename: Miguel Angel
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Mercado
authors.forename: Héctor
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Orozco Zepeda
authors.forename: Juan José
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Plata-Muñoz
mesh_terms: D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D006975:Hypertension, Portal / Q000628:therapy*