Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Endosc. Mar 16, 2024; 16(3): 98-101
Published online Mar 16, 2024. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v16.i3.98
Computed tomography for the prediction of oesophageal variceal bleeding: A surrogate or complementary to the gold standard?
Yasser Fouad, Mohamed Alboraie
Yasser Fouad, Department of Gastroenterology and Endemic Medicine, Minia University, Minia 19111, Egypt
Mohamed Alboraie, Department of Internal Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo 11451, Egypt
Author contributions: Fouad Y, and Alboraie M participated in conceptualization of the manuscript and collection of data; Fouad Y wrote the manuscript. All authors revised and approved the revised version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yasser Fouad, DO, MD, Professor, Department of Gastroenterology and Endemic Medicine, Minia University, Al-Horryia Street, Minia 19111, Egypt. yasserfouad10@yahoo.com
Received: December 3, 2023
Peer-review started: December 3, 2023
First decision: December 29, 2023
Revised: December 29, 2023
Accepted: February 8, 2024
Article in press: February 8, 2024
Published online: March 16, 2024
Processing time: 101 Days and 10.9 Hours
Abstract

In this editorial we comment on the in-press article in the World Journal of Gastrointestinal endoscopy about the role of computed tomography (CT) for the prediction of esophageal variceal bleeding. The mortality and morbidity are much increased in patients with chronic liver diseases when complicated with variceal bleeding. Predicting the patient at a risk of bleeding is extremely important and receives a great deal of attention, paving the way for primary prophylaxis either using medical treatment including carvedilol or propranolol, or endoscopic band ligation. Endoscopic examination and the hepatic venous pressure gradient are the gold standards in the diagnosis and prediction of variceal bleeding. Several non-invasive laboratory and radiological examinations are used for the prediction of variceal bleeding. The contrast-enhanced multislice CT is a widely used non-invasive, radiological examination that has many advantages. In this editorial we briefly comment on the current research regarding the use of CT as a non-invasive tool in predicting the variceal bleeding.

Keywords: Computed tomography; Esophageal varices; Bleeding; Non-invasive predictor; Endoscopy

Core Tip: Predicting the patient at a risk of variceal bleeding is extremely important and receives a great deal of attention, paving the way for primary prophylaxis either using medical treatment including carvedilol or propranolol, or endoscopic band ligation. Endoscopic examination and the hepatic venous pressure gradient are the gold standards in the diagnosis and prediction of variceal bleeding. The computed tomography (CT) is a widely used non-invasive, radiological examination that can be used as a predictor of variceal bleeding and has many advantages. Conflicting results have been shown regarding the effectiveness of CT in predicting variceal bleeding and more studies are needed.