Surgical management of portal hypertension

We have analyzed retrospectively our operative morbidity and mortality in patients with portal hypertension treated before 1975 and found that the four type classification of arteriographic findings correlated well with the postoperative clinical outcome of these patients. Then, we established as set of criteria to define operative risk and applied it prospectively to patients treated after 1975. The results obtained so far point toward the usefulness of our selection of patients in reducing operative mortality and morbidity.