[Evaluation of the effects of dense endoscopic ligation for bleeding esophageal varices].
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the short-term and long-term effects of dense endoscopic variceal ligation (DEVL) for bleeding esophageal varices.


METHODS
Patients with acute or with a history of esophageal variceal bleeding underwent regular DEVLs with a 2-3 week interval between 2 sessions until their varices disappeared at the lower 5-6 cm part of the esophagus. Follow-up study and gastroscopy were performed at 3, 6 and 12 months after the final DEVL in all patients. The results at 3 months were classified as short-term effects and those after 6 months as long-term ones.


RESULTS
126 patients underwent DEVLs with 403 sessions and 3641 ligations; each patient was ligated with a mean of 3.2 sessions and at 28.9 points. The cure rate of acute variceal bleeding was 100.0%; short-term rate of variceal eradication was 94.4% and variceal rebleeding occurred in 3.9% patients. After a mean of 22.3 months follow-up period, the recurrence of esophageal varices was observed in 11.9% patients, but the variceal rebleeding rate was only 3.2% and no patients died from it.


CONCLUSIONS
DEVL was very useful and effective in both short-term and long-term variceal eradication and prevention of variceal rebleeding.
Mei
Zhe-Chuan
ZC
Department of Digestive Diseases, Second Affiliated Hospital, Chongqing University of Medical Sciences, Chongqing 400010, China. meizhch@sohu.com
He
Lu
L
Chen
Wei-Qing
WQ
Shen
Wei
W
Shen
Ding-Ming
DM
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D004932:Esophageal and Gastric Varices / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery*; D004945:Esophagoscopy; D005260:Female; D006471:Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D008026:Ligation / Q000379:methods; D008103:Liver Cirrhosis / Q000150:complications*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016896:Treatment Outcome