Barcelona hospital unblocks children’s liver veins without surgery
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Doctors at the Vall d'Hebron Hospital in Barcelona, Spain, began using a new technique to clear blocked veins that carry blood from the intestine and spleen to the liver in young patients.
Previously, children with this condition required open abdominal surgery and a week-long hospital stay. The new method, interventional radiology, involves accessing the vein through small punctures and using catheters to restore blood flow.
The condition occurs when the vein becomes blocked, forcing blood to find alternate routes, which increases blood pressure and can lead to an enlarged spleen, low platelet counts, and dangerous bleeding in the esophagus and stomach. The new technique prevents these complications by re-establishing normal circulation. Before this approach, surgeons had to open the abdomen and sometimes transplant a vein from another part of the child’s body to create a new connection.
The hospital has now treated 24 children with this technique, achieving success in 12 cases. While the initial success rate was 50 percent, doctors report that it is improving with experience, reaching as high as 70 percent. Even when the procedure doesn’t immediately work, it provides valuable information to guide potential future surgery.
