<p>This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.</p> <p>Forty endoscopically proven active variceal bleeds were entered in a prospective trial comparing
oesophageal tamponade with SMS 201-995 infusion.</p> <p>Oesophageal tamponade controlled 19 of 20 bleeds over the first four hours and 14 of 18 bleeds over
48 hours. SMS 201-995 infusion controlled 18 of 20 bleeds over the first four hours and 10 of 20 bleeds
over 48 hours (<italic>p</italic> = 0.15). No significant differences between the groups were seen in time to control of
bleeding, amount of blood transfused or number of patients crossed over to the opposite treatment.
Complications in the oesophageal tamponade group were discomfort due to the tube (17 patients) and
chest infection (10 patients), while in the SMS 201-995 group 7 chest infections and one episode of
hyperglycaemia occurred, with no symptomatic complaints. The patient survived the admission in 15 of
the oesophageal tamponade bleeds and all of the SMS 201-995 bleeds (<italic>p</italic> = 0.047).</p> <p>An intravenous infusion of SMS 201-995 appears to have comparable efficacy to oesophageal
tamponade in variceal bleeding.</p>
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HPB Surg. 1992; 6(1):7-17