[Postoperative care in portal hypertension surgery (author's transl)]

The postoperative courses of 26 patients admitted to an Intensive Care Unit after different types of surgery on their portal tree are studied. All were diagnosed as having portal hypertension secondary to chronic liver disease and had presented one or more episodes of bleeding. Those complications of greater risk with an important early mortality rate are: 1) recurrence of the gastrointestinal hemorrhage, independently of the type of lesion which originates it; 2) recurrence of ascites because these patients more often develop dehiscence of the abdominal wall, serious dilutional hyponatremia and severe functional renal insufficiency; 3) acute renal failure, both functional or caused by an organic tubulo-interstitial nephropathy; 4) peritonitis; 5) persistent hepatolytic episode; 6) hyperdynamic heart failure; and 7) re-operations in general, independently of the causes. The frequency of these complications and the greater or lesser seriousness of their development in the postoperative period are dependent on: 1) the age of the patient with a better prognosis for those under 50; 2) the histopathologic type of the hepatic lesion, with hepatic fibrosis having a more favourable evolution in comparison with cirrhosis; 3) the degree of decompensation of the hepatopathy immediately before the operation, evaluating signs of functional hepatic deficit, cytolysis and degree of portal hypertension. The greater the preoperative activity, the worse the postsurgical prognosis. 4) The elective or urgent character of the surgery. During the postoperative course of emergency surgery all types of complications may appear. The emergency operation which has effectively achieved the stopping of the esophageal bleeding has been the porto-azygos disconnection, which allows later a portosystemic shunt with a greater probability of success. 5) The type of anastomosis carried out. Radicular shunts were those which had a lower postoperative mortality rate and those which progressed better because of the small number of problems occurring in the early postoperative period.