Anticoagulant Treatment After Transjugular Intrahepatic Portasystemic Shunt: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis / 胃肠病学

ABSTRACT

Background: Transjugular intrahepatic portasystemic shunt (TIPS) is widely used for reducing portal hypertension. Post-TIPS anticoagulant treatment is controversial because of lack of obligatory evidence. Aims: To systematically review the effect of anticoagulant treatment on patients with liver cirrhosis after TIPS. Methods: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of liver cirrhosis patients after TIPS with anticoagulant treatment (anticoagulant treatment group) or without anticoagulant treatment/placebo (control group) were retrieved from PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, CNKI, Wanfang, CBM and VIP databases in March 2020. Meta-analysis was conducted by RevMan 5.3. Results: Three RCTs involving 157 liver cirrhosis patients were enrolled. These studies mainly reported the effects of anticoagulant treatment on gastrointestinal rebleeding, stent patency, mortality and incidence of hepatic encephalopathy (HE). Meta-analysis revealed that no significant differences in total gastrointestinal bleeding rate (OR=1.04, 95% CI: 0.25-4.38, P=0.96), variceal bleeding rate (OR=1.04, 95% CI: 0.14-7.68, P=0.97), stent stenosis (OR=1.88, 95% CI: 0.73-4.79, P=0.19), occlusion (OR=0.07, 95% CI: 0.00-1.44, P=0.09), shunt dysfunction (OR=0.67, 95% CI: 0.10-4.29, P=0.67), mortality (OR=2.12, 95% CI: 0.06-72.77, P=0.68) and incidence of HE (OR=1.18, 95% CI: 0.45-3.06, P=0.74) were found between anticoagulant treatment group and control group. Conclusions: Post-TIPS anticoagulant treatment is safe and without increasing the rate of gastrointestinal rebleeding, mortality and incidence of HE. However, anticoagulant treatment does not further improve the stent patency. Therefore, anticoagulant treatment appears to be unnecessary in patients with liver cirrhosis after TIPS.