Minimally invasive intervention for upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage

  In the past six months or so, a series of work has been carried out for patients with chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, portal hypertension, and upper gastrointestinal bleeding in conjunction with hepatology medicine and surgery to reduce portal pressure and embolize varices in the esophagogastric fundus vein through minimally invasive interventions to achieve immediate hemostatic effects, saving the lives of a number of patients with severe cirrhosis with gastrointestinal bleeding and bringing a blessing to patients.  At present, we have performed partial embolization of splenic artery (PSE), percutaneous liver (or spleen) puncture esophagogastric fundic variceal embolization (PTVE), portal vein angioplasty (balloon dilation + stent implantation), and recently, we successfully performed BORTO (balloon block retrograde variceal embolization) for a patient with severe fundic varices and gastro-renal shunt.  The patient, a 62-year-old female, had been diagnosed with chronic hepatitis B and cirrhosis for more than 20 years, and was found to be infected with hepatitis C more than 10 years ago, and was admitted to the hospital in January with recurrent vomiting of blood and black stools. Despite aggressive medical treatment, she vomited blood again at noon on April 8 and was in shock, with a hematocrit of only 4 g. The patient was tested positive for irregular antibodies in the blood and would have serious adverse reactions to common transfusion testing methods, along with severe hypoproteinemia, massive ascites, and extremely poor liver function, which is class C. If the bleeding could not be effectively stopped, the patient might die at any time; however, the patient’s age, long course of illness, heavy and complicated condition, and the risk and difficulty of surgery were really a “dilemma”. After obtaining the family’s understanding and support, we decided to perform emergency interventional surgery. A balloon catheter less than 1.7 mm in diameter was placed in the femoral vein at the root of the patient’s thigh and passed through the inferior vena cava, the left renal vein, and the abnormal shunt of the gastro-renal vein to reach the varicose and ruptured fundic vein, and the filling balloon blocked the shunt of the gastro-renal vein and injected tissue glue to retrograde fill the varicose vein and occlude the offender vessel to achieve hemostasis. Partial embolization of the splenic artery was also performed to improve hypersplenic symptoms and relieve portal vein pressure. The patient stopped vomiting blood immediately after the operation, stopped all hemostatic drugs, gradually resumed eating and moving on the floor, and was released from life-threatening conditions.  Ruptured esophageal and fundic varices bleeding is a major complication of portal hypertension, with an incidence of 25%-30% and a mortality rate of 50% for the first bleeding and even higher for repeated bleeding. Since most patients have a history of hepatitis and cirrhosis for many years, their liver function is extremely poor or even failing, and some elderly patients also have hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, renal insufficiency, etc., if gastrointestinal bleeding occurs again at this time, the mortality rate is extremely high, and the difficulty of clinical treatment can be imagined. Interventional medicine, as an emerging medical science, is gaining more and more attention for its advantages such as small trauma, quick effect, repeatable treatment, integration of diagnosis and treatment, and quick recovery, etc. It plays a great role in the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases such as gastrointestinal bleeding.