Portal Vein Thrombosis Can Aggravate Esophageal Variceal Bleeding After Endoscopic Variceal Ligation

Background:China is a big country of hepatitis B,and the incidence of cirrhosis is high.Esophageal variceal bleeding(EVB)caused by portal hypertension is one of the main causes of death in the patients with liver cirrhosis.In the case of esophageal varices,endoscopic variceal ligation(EVL)is one of the main treatment methods.We aimed to evaluate whether portal vein thrombosis(PVT)and other factors influence EVB after EVL for liver cirrhosis patients.Methods:We retrospectively enrolled 255 patients with EVL in our hospital and parameters of age,gender,blood platelet,albumin,total bilirubin(TBil),D-dimer,activated partial thromboplastin time(APTT),prothrombin time(PT),Child-Pugh classification,portal vein thrombosis(PVT)and splenectomy were collected.Results:EVB patients had higher PVT diagnosed rate than non-EVB patients(p=0.009)and the rate of EVB had an increasing trend with the severity of ascites(p=0.034).On multivariate analysis,we still found PVT and ascites obviously affected incidence rate of EVB(p=0.026,p=0.027,respectively).Conclusion:PVT and ascites per se appeared to be the cause of EVB subsequent to EVL.If detected,anticoagulation or treatments refer to PVT and ascites needed to conducted in order to reduce the incidence of EVB after EVL.