Injection Sclerotherapy for Esophageal Varices Associated with Hepatocellular Carcinoma and Liver Cirrhosis

Survival period, causes of death and variceal rebleeding in 20 patients with esophageal varices associated with hepatocellular carcinoma and liver cirrhosis were analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of injection sclerotherapy. The first injection sclerotherapy successfully stopped active variceal bleeding in all seven emergency cases. These were followed up as elective cases later on. The remaining 13 patients, who had a history of variceal bleeding, were treated as elective cases from the beginning. Endoscopic evaluation of the varices was performed at intervals of six months to one year, after the first sclerotherapy, and recurrence was treated by elective sclerotherapy. 85% of the patients died within one year. Three out of 20 cases were still alive until this study was performed. But, whereas 17 patients died mainly due to hepatic failure and hepatocellular carcinoma, only one patient died due to variceal rebleeding. No deaths were observed to have been directly due to sclerotherapy or its complications. Hence we think that injection sclerotherapy should be considered one of the treatments for esophageal varices in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and liver cirrhosis.