<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>Sixteen patients with persistent (<italic>n</italic> = 11) or recurrent (<italic>n</italic> = 5) variceal bleeding after injection
sclerotherapy and balloon tamponade were treated with an intravenous infusion of somatostatin 250μg/
h. Somatostatin infusion successfully controlled the bleeding in 15 of the 16 patients but one rebled after
72 h of treatment. In one patient with poor liver function (Child’s C) bleeding was not controlled by
somatostatin, further injection sclerotherapy or balloon tamponade of the oesophagus. The results of
this study, although uncontrolled and with a small number of patients, suggest that somatostatin is a very
effective treatment for the control of post-injection sclerotherapy variceal bleeding.</p>
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HPB Surg. 1992; 5(4):221-227