Cost of treatment of bleeding esophageal varices.

We examined the cost of four methods of treatment of bleeding esophageal varices--medical treatment, sclerotherapy, variceal ligation operations, and portal systemic shunts--in 49 consecutive patients from 1977 to 1979, and correlated the two-year outcome with cost. We found that, despite bias imposed by selection, the cost per patient and cost per survivor at two years was lowest in patients who received sclerotherapy, even though they were more seriously ill than patients who received other treatments. Patients treated with sclerotherapy also had the lowest mortality during primary hospitalization and the lowest readmission rate during a two-year period.