Low risk of variceal bleeding in cirrhotic patients after variceal screening stratified by liver/spleen stiffness

Abstract

We previously demonstrated the possible non‐inferiority of a screening strategy for varices guided by liver and spleen stiffness measurement (LSSM) compared to universal endoscopic screening in detecting clinically significant varices in patients with cirrhosis. We now report the long‐term outcome of the patients recruited in this trial for incident variceal bleeding and other hepatic events. This was a prospective follow‐up study of a non‐inferiority, open‐label, randomized controlled trial (NCT02024347) of 548 adult patients with known chronic liver diseases, radiological evidence of liver cirrhosis and compensated liver function. The primary outcome of this prospective study was incident variceal bleeding confirmed with upper endoscopy. Between October 2013 and June 2016, 548 patients were randomized to LSSM arm (n=274) and conventional arm (n=274) were recruited. Patients in both study arms were predominantly middle‐aged men (mean age 59 years, male 68.9%) with viral hepatitis‐related cirrhosis (85%). Upper endoscopy examination was performed in 127 (46.4%) of patients in the LSSM arm and 263 (96.0%) in the conventional arm. During the follow‐up period of 41.3+/‐12.6 months, 12/274 patients in the LSSM arm (4.4%) and 11/274 in the conventional arm (4.0%) developed incident variceal bleeding (log‐rank test P=0.724). The incident rates of hepatic events were also similar in both arms (P=0.327). Conclusions: Patients with liver cirrhosis who had undergone LSSM‐guided variceal screening were of similarly low risk of incident variceal bleeding in the future. Patients with cirrhosis may first have LSSM measured to save up to half of the upper endoscopy examinations.

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