Endoscopic management for bleeding esophageal varices: sclerotherapy versus sclerotherapy plus band ligation versus band ligation alone. One year experience at a main hospital in Saudi Arabia.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: This study was done retrospectively to compare the outcome of sclerotherapy alone, band ligation alone and band ligation alternating with sclerotherapy in treatment of esophageal varices. METHODOLOGY: During 1 year 30 patients were admitted with variceal bleeding. They received either injection sclerotherapy (8 patients) or band ligation (11 patients), and 11 patients had a combination of both either during first bleed or during follow-up therapy, which is more than 2 sessions in each group. RESULTS: The success rate for stopping first bleeding was 100% in the band ligation and sclerotherapy alone group. The rebleeding rate was 27% in the combination group, 9% in the band ligation group, and none had rebleeding in the sclerotherapy group during follow-up. Eradication of varices was observed in 33% of patients after a second set of sclerotherapy and band ligation. CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed no significant difference between sclerotherapy versus band ligation in stopping initial bleeding or eradication of varices during the follow-up period, but there was a difference in re-bleeding rates among the three groups.