ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the clinical effect of vagus nerve preserving pericardial devascularization plus subtotal splenectomy in treating portal hypertension with a history of variceal bleeding.Methods The clinical data of 33 cases of portal hypertension with variceal hemorrhage treated with vagus nerve preserving selective pericardial devascularization plus subtotal splenectomy from April 2004 to December 2013 (study group) were compared with that of 34 cases treated with pericardial devascularization plus splenectomy (control group).Results There was no mortality in two groups.The postoperative gastric drainage during the first 72 h were(1 525 ±30) ml in the study group and (2 130 ±40) ml in control group(P ＜0.05).Portal vein thrombosis developed in one case in the study group and 15 cases in the control group(P ＜ 0.05).Postoperative 3-year recurrent gastroesophageal varices hemorrhage was 15％ in the study group and 25％ in the control group (P ＜ 0.05).Postoperative 5-year variceal hemorrhage recurrence rate were 28％ in the study group and 30％ in the control group (P ＞ 0.05).Conclusions Maitaining vagus nerve selective pericardial devascularization plus subtotal splenectomy is of less postoperative complication and lower portal vein thrombosis rate and better patients' survival compared with pericardial devascularizatim plus total splenectomy.