JPSIM Journal of Pakistan Society of Internal Medicine J Pak Soc Intern Med 2709-8729 2710-0804 Pakistan Society of Internal Medicine 10.70302/jpsim.v2i4.2173 jpsim.v2i4.2173 Original Research Comparison of Carvedilol and Endoscopic Band Ligation for the Prevention of Variceal Bleed in Patients of Cirrhosis Khan Muhammad Shoaib Niaz Zafar Mumtaz Sami Ullah drsummumtaz@gmail.com * Siddiqui Areej Azhar Iqtadar Somia Abaidulla Sajid Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Lahore King Edward Medical University/Mayo Hospital Saeeda Wajahat Foundation, Lahore *Correspondence: Sami Ullah Mumtaz (drsummumtaz@gmail.com) 14 12 2021 2021 2 4 327 329 09 09 2021 06 12 2021 Copyright © 2021 The Author(s) 2021 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective

To compare carvedilol & endoscopic band ligation (EBL) for the prevention of variceal bleed in patients of

cirrhosis.

 Methodology

This was a randomized control trial done at North Medical Unit, Mayo Hospital, Lahore from 1st December

2016 to 30th May 2017. After ethical approval of study, 250 patients of cirrhosis were taken through non-probability

purposive sampling technique. Informed consent was taken from each patient. After taking demographic details patients

were randomly divided into two groups by using simple lottery method. In group A, patients received carvedilol 12.5mg

daily orally and in group B, EBL was done using a multibander device. Then patients were followed for 6 months

afterwards for variceal bleed. The frequency of variceal bleed in two groups was compared by using Chi square test. Pvalue < 0.05 was considered significant.

 Results

The mean age was 53.06±14.50 years. There were 41.2% females & 58.8% males. Variceal bleed (VB) was

observed in 22 patients in which 6 patients were of carvedilol group and 16 were of EBL group. There was significant

difference between two groups in response to therapy of VB i.e. p-value=0.026 was significant.

 Conclusion

Carvedilol was more effective for VB prevention as compared to EBLin cirrhotic patients

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