Diameter of the shunt: the missing link in the appraisal of pTIPS in patients with cirrhosis with previous hepatic encephalopathy

We read with interest the manuscript by Rudler et al.1 The authors reported a substudy of a multicentre prospective observational investigation evaluating acute variceal bleeding (AVB) in 2138 patients with cirrhosis (927 were at high risk of rebleeding, ie, Child-Pugh (CP) C 10–13 or CP B and active bleeding) between 2011 and 2015. Among 671 high-risk patients meeting the inclusion criteria for pre-emptive transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (pTIPS) placement, only 66 actually received this procedure, of whom 35 had hepatic encephalopathy (HE) at admission. Patients were followed for 1 year. The authors observed that the cumulative incidence of HE did not differ between patients who had had a previous episode of HE (n=15) and those who had not (n=51), in the subgroup of 66 high-risk patients receiving pTIPS. We would like to raise a few important issues. First, a recent individual data meta-analysis assessing the efficacy of pTIPS...

Source: Gut - October 6, 2023 Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Thevenot, T., Desmarets, M., Weil, D., Di Martino, V. Tags: Gut PostScript Source Type: research