Low incidence of complications from endoscopic gastric variceal obturation with butyl cyanoacrylate.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Endoscopic variceal obturation with tissue adhesive is used to control gastric variceal bleeding. We investigated the prevalence of serious complications from this therapy.

METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of complications that occurred in 753 patients with gastric variceal hemorrhages who were hospitalized in 2 tertiary referral hospitals. All patients received N-butyl-2-cyanoacrylate as therapy for endoscopic variceal obturation.

RESULTS: Complications occurred in 51 patients. Thirty-three patients experienced rebleeding because of early-onset (within 3 months) extrusion of the N-butyl-2-cyanoacrylate glue cast (4.4%), 10 patients developed sepsis (1.3%), and 5 patients developed distant embolisms (0.7%; 1 pulmonary, 1 brain, and 3 splenic). One patient had major gastric variceal bleeding after endoscopic variceal obturation (0.1%), 1 developed a large gastric ulcer (0.1%), and 1 had mesentery hematoma, hemoperitoneum, and infection in the abdominal cavity (0.1%). The complication-related mortality was 0.53% (3 deaths from sepsis and 1 death from rebleeding after early-onset glue cast extrusion).

CONCLUSIONS: The occurrence of complications after endoscopic variceal obturation with N-butyl-2-cyanoacrylate in gastric varices treatment is rare.