A Clinical Trial of the Vessel Sealing System (LigaSure) in Azygoportal Disconnection and Splenectomy in Patients With Portal Hypertension

Naval Military Medical University (Second Military Medical University)

Status and phase: Completed; Phase 4

Conditions: Liver Cirrhosis

Treatments: Device: Vessel sealing system LigaSure

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00965744

SCZH-0908-016

Details and patient eligibility

About

The aim of this trial was to verify the efficiency of a new surgical device (the LigaSure vessels sealing system) in esophagogastric decongestion and splenectomy in patients with portal hypertension.

Full description

Bleeding from esophageal and gastric cardia varices is the major life threatening complication in patients with portal hypertension. Patients with portal hypertension have a mortality rate of 30%-50% at the first episode of esophagogastric variceal rupture. The associated 1-year mortality rate is reported to be 75%. The ideal treatment for gastric varices should effectively control bleeding and improve the liver function to optimum levels. Although endoscopic treatments have showed great promise for esophageal varices, there is still controversy regarding the treatment of gastric varices. Hepatic encephalopathy remain a dominant problems after transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt placement (TIPS) and surgical shunts. A meta-analysis has shown that the incidence of hepatic encephalopathy and mortality was increased significantly either in nonselective or selective shunt operations.

Esophagogastric decongestion and splenectomy with or without esophageal transaction were the fundamental operation performed in our department for patients with portal hypertension. Patients under the azygoportal devascularization methods revealed reduction of the encephalopathy as well as diminished rebleeding rates. The crucial point of the procedure is prevention of the brisk bleeding from the dilated vessels like enlarged azygoportal collaterals. Conventional hand-tied ligatures can become dislodged and represent a foreign body, and more important, it is tedious and time-consuming. The LigaSure vessel sealing system (Valleylab, Boulder, Colorado) is a bipolar electrosurgical device, sealing vessels up to 7 mm in diameter, by denaturing collagen and elastin within vessel wall and surrounding connective tissue. This device was tested, with excellent results, in different fields of surgery (gastrointestinal, hepatopancreatobiliary, urologic, gynecologic, laparoscopic, etc), as demonstrated by several recently published studies. Shamiyeh et al confirmed the reliability of LigaSure for the closure of the veins in laparoscopic azygoportal disconnection procedure on the portal hypertension porcine model in 2005, there was no intra- or post-operative bleeding and no conversion to open surgery, and when more than 2 mm far from the thermal energy source, no collateral damage of the solid tissue such as stomach could be detected.

Enrollment: 60 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients with liver cirrhosis accompanied by portal hypertension and secondary hypersplenism due to hepatitis, alcoholic cirrhosis or schistosomiasis, who undergoing elective azygoportal disconnection and splenectomy

Exclusion criteria

• Liver function as Child-Pugh C
• Hemoglobin < 9 g/dL
• Ascites
• Abnormal coagulation

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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60 participants in 2 patient groups

Vessel sealing system LigaSure (VS group)

Experimental group

Description:

Patients in VS group undergoing esophagogastric decongestion (Azygoportal Disconnection) and splenectomy with or without esophageal transaction with the vessel sealing system LigaSure.

Treatment:

Device: Vessel sealing system LigaSure

Conventional hand-tied method (CH group)

No Intervention group

Description:

Patients in CH group undergoing esophagogastric decongestion (Azygoportal Disconnection) and splenectomy with or without esophageal transaction with the conventional hand-tied method.