[Long-term sclerosing therapy of bleeding esophageal varices. A prospective course study]

Longterm sclerotherapy by flexible endoscopy was done in 109 patients with acute bleeding from oesophageal varices in a prospective follow-up study. The severity of the liver disease was classified according to Child (Pugh's modification) at the beginning of treatment. Patients were followed-up for at least 12 months with a maximum of 44 months. The one-year survival rate for all patients was 67%. Child-A patients (100%) and child-B patients (84%) had a significantly better survival than Child-C patients (36%; P less than 0.001). The rate of haemorrhage per patient-month was significantly lower (P less than 0.001) in Child-A patients (0.4%) and Child-B patients (2.4%) than in Child-C patients (8.5%). After initial sclerosing of 8 weeks' duration the rate of recurrent haemorrhage was only 1.3% per patient-month. There was a significant difference (P less than 0.005) between Child-A patients (0.2%) and Child-B and -C patients (2%). The data show that Child-Pugh's classification permits a high prognostic accuracy in predicting results of sclerotherapy. Child-A and -B patients are suitable candidates for longterm sclerotherapy whereas Child-C patients show a clearly increased risk of recurrent bleeding during the early phase of treatment and have a markedly reduced survival rate.