The management of parastomal varices is not established. Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) creation is the most commonly described treatment; however, the rebleed rate after TIPS is 21-37%. The purpose of the study is to determine the effectiveness of transvenous obliteration using sodium tetradecyl sulfate (STS) and to describe a new simplified technique in obliterating these varices. Four patients are presented who underwent transvenous obliteration using STS. One was obliterated using balloon occlusion from the systemic veins, the second was obliterated without balloon from a transhepatic antegrade approach, and the last two patients were obliterated using the direct antegrade technique. This simplified technique requires only a micropuncture kit (not requiring balloons or coils) and ultrasound transducer compression of the systemic draining veins, relying on high portal pressure to keep the sclerosant confined to the varices. The sclerosant is essentially trapped between the portal pressure and the ultrasound-transducer compression (10-15 min). Technical success was achieved in all four patients without procedural or postprocedural complications and no rebleeding for a mean follow-up of 17 (range 2-33) months. Transvenous obliteration of parastomal varices utilizing STS as a sclerosant is safe and effective. The newly described technique is simple, feasible, and requires minimal equipment (no balloons or coils or catheters).
It is unknown whether spontaneous gastrorenal shunts actually develop in the pediatric population. The minimum age documented in studies from Asia is 32 (range 32-44) years. This study describes three pediatric patients undergoing balloon-occluded retrograde transvenous obliteration (BRTO) for bleeding gastric varices with two of the three patients undergoing combined partial splenic embolization. The first BRTO is a selective-BRTO via a surgical splenorenal shunt (15 years old) and the other two patients underwent conventional-BRTO via a spontaneous gastrorenal shunt (8 and 14 years old). The recurrent significant bleeding that they exhibited before the combined endovascular therapy did not recur for an average of 7.1 (range 1.4-14) months. In the second patient, quantitative digitally subtracted angiography was utilized to evaluate the inline portal venous flow before and after BRTO.
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