“…Comparing our results with shunt surgery, until 1990 most reports described an incidence of shunt occlusion of up to 60 % and a rebleeding rate of 45 % with a 10 -20 % mortality rate [1,3,4,8]. In the last decade, an improvement in the operative technique resulted in a 44% rebleeding rate due to shunt thrombosis in eleven children with shunt surgery [13], and a patency rate of 96 %, with an average follow-up of 5.8 years in twenty-two children with shunt surgery [20]. There were two late deaths, and morbidity occurred in three cases, with cirrhosis in two and one patient with extra-hepatic portal hypertension who suffered from post-shunt encephalopathy.…”