Somatostatin treatment and risk stratification by continuous portal pressure monitoring during acute variceal bleeding

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Somatostatin, published as a randomized controlled trial.

During acute variceal bleeding, several factors may lead to elevations of hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG), which may precipitate further hemorrhage.

Whether somatostatin can suppress these increments is unknown.

This study monitored somatostatin effects on HVPG during acute bleeding and assessed whether the changes affect outcome.

Who Took Part

The study group was 40 patients.

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults, both men and women.

In 40 patients with acute variceal bleeding treated with sclerotherapy, a catheter was placed into a main hepatic vein for 24-hour serial measurements of HVPG.

After baseline measurements, patients received somatostatin (N = 25) or placebo (N = 15) under double blind conditions.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this Somatostatin study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Neither the patients nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Somatostatin, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Somatostatin group a baseline to be compared against.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage, Hemodynamics, Hormones, Monitoring, Physiologic, Portal Pressure, Risk Factors and Sclerotherapy.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Somatostatin in 40 patients.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 8 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2001 (Gastroenterology), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Somatostatin compound page, all human trials.