Predictors of early rebleeding after endoscopic therapy of first variceal bleeding in liver cirrhosis

Abstract Background Despite the great advancement in therapeutic modalities for esophageal varices, early variceal rebleeding still occurs at high rates leading to an exaggeration of the morbidity and mortality for cirrhotic patients, so meticulous follow-up with optimum prediction and proper preventive measures for early variceal rebleeding are mandatory for increasing survival of those patients. In this respect, we evaluated the clinical, laboratory, abdominal ultrasound, and endoscopic criteria of variceal cirrhotic patients as possible risk predictors of early variceal rebleeding after endoscopic control of first variceal bleeding. All included patients were followed up blindly for 12 weeks after endoscopic control of bleeding for ascertainment of first variceal rebleeding. The demographic, clinical, laboratory, abdominal ultrasound, and upper gastrointestinal endoscopic criteria were evaluated for all patients at first admission. Results By univariate regression analysis, the statistically significant predictors for early variceal rebleeding were serum albumin, serum bilirubin, prothrombin concentration, Child-Pugh score, platelet count, spleen diameter, ascites, portal vein diameter and velocity, variceal size, variceal location, and red color sign. By using multivariate regression analysis, the most independent significant predictors were Child-Pugh score (sig: 0.001 and OR: 1.661), platelets count (sig: 0.000 and OR: 0.956), portal vein velocity (sig: 0.000 and OR: 0.664), variceal grading (sig: 0.000 and OR: 3.964), and variceal red color sign (sig: 0.000 and OR: 4.964). We used the multivariate regression coefficients for the significant predictors to build up early variceal rebleeding risk (EVRR) score with a significant discriminatory performance (AUC: 0.965 and sig: 0.000). Conclusion Child-Pugh score, platelet count, portal vein velocity, variceal grading, and variceal red color sign are independent risk predictors for early variceal rebleeding after successful control of first variceal bleeding in cirrhotic patients. Our proposed EVRR score could be helpful for the prediction of early variceal rebleeding in cirrhotic patients after endoscopic control of acute variceal bleeding; however, it should be externally validated in large prospective studies.