Esophageal varices

In medicine (gastroenterology), esophageal varices are extreme dilations of sub-mucosal veins in the mucosa of the esophagus in diseases featuring portal hypertension, secondary to cirrhosis primarily. more...

Patients with esophageal varices have a strong tendency to develop bleeding.

Esophageal varices are disagnosed with endoscopy.

Treatment

In emergency situations, the care is directed at stopping blood loss, and maintaining plasma volume.

• banding
• sclerotherapy

Prevention

Ideally, patients with known varices should receive treatment to reduce their risk of bleeding (Lebrec et al., 1981). The non-selective β-blockers (e.g., propranolol, timolol or nadolol). The effectiveness of this treatment has been shown by a number of different studies (Talwalkar JA & Kamath PS, 2004).

Unfortunately, non-selective β-blockers do not prevent the formation of esophageal varices (Groszmann RJ et al., 2005).

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