[Portosystemic anastomosis during pregnancy]

There is discussed the surgical treatment of massive otherwise uncontrolable haemorrhage from oesophageal varices during advanced pregnancy. The authors have performed in the above situation a splenorenal shunt in a women suffering from the prehepatic portal hypertension during her sixth month of pregnancy. The pregnancy was maintained but an unviable child was born. The authors were able to find only 5 quotations from the references available to them dealing with 5 similar cases in women who delivered healthy babies thanks to a surgical intervention (5 times a portal systemic shunt, once a direct operation). The most important prevention of those exceptional surgical indications is the careful evaluation of all circumstances for a pregnancy in women with portal hypertension.