Sclerosing Therapy of Esophageal Varices

  SUMMARY Bleeding of esophageal varices have a high mortality rate, and medical management is usualy unsuccessful. Surgical methods such as vascular ligation or shunting are expensive. High risk procedures with high mortality. Endoscopic sclerotherapy was applied in 104 patients with acute bleeding of esophageal varices during a period of 5 years in a prospettive and retrospective study. The sclerosing agent (Ethanol, Ethanol amin oleate, Sodium tetradecyl) was injected paravariceal and or intravariceally. The varices were eradicated after 3 -8 sessions. Immediate bleeding control was achived in 92% of the cases and prevented recurrences. ln 89% of the cases during 21 mounths. The mortality rate was 2%. This study shows that endoscopic sclerotherapy can be recommended as an effective procedure which could be easily performed in any hospital and is also less expensive than surgery.