Acute esophageal variceal bleeding: Current strategies and new perspectives

Table 2 Analysis of pooled data of the only two studies in acute variceal bleeding comparing combined therapy vs endoscopy alone in which endoscopic variceal ligation was used as endoscopic modality

	VAD + EVL n/N (%)	EVL n/N (%)
Calés et al[92]	14/98 (14)	21/98 (21)
Sung et al[91]	5/47 (11)	11/47 (23)
Total	19/145 (13)	32/145 (22)

Absolute risk difference for combined therapy: -9.0%, CI95 1.7%-17.7%; RR: 0.59, CI95 0.35-0.99, P = 0.045. In the study by Calés et al, EVL was not performed in all patients (the exact percentage of patients receiving EVL or EST is not provided). VAD: vasoactive drug; EVL: endoscopic variceal ligation; EST: endoscopic sclerotherapy; n/N: number of events/number of patients in each treatment arm; CI95: 95% confidence interval.