Abstract: Objective This study was conducted to investigate the long-term efficacy of combined stents and Viatorr stents in transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic stent shunt (TIPSS) for treatment of patients with liver cirrhosis (LC) and complicated portal hypertension (PH). Methods All patients in our series underwent TIPSS, 29 patients were assigned to combined stents and 22 to Viatorr stents and all were followed-up for five years. The patency of the intrahepatic shunts were check-up by ultrasonography or/and CT scan. The survival was compared by Kaplan-Meier method. Results The operational costs in patients in Viatorr group was 73282.9(68190.6, 81242.2)yuan, much greater than [61912.7(53713.6,67530.3)yuan, P<0.05] in patients in combined stents; at the end of one, two, three, four and five years after TIPSS, the cumulative patency of intrahepatic stents in patients with Viatorr were 90.9%, 77.3%, 72.7%, 71.4% and 68.4%, and they were 86.7%, 80.0%, 76.7%, 73.3% and 70.0% in patients with combined stents, not significantly different between the two groups (P＞0.05); the cumulative survival rates in patients with Viatorr stent were 95.5%, 77.3%, 72.7%, 68.2% and 59.1%, also not significantly different as compared to 93.3%, 86.7%, 83.3%, 83.3% and 79.9% in patients with combined stents (P＞0.05). Conclusion We recommend the choice of combined stents or Viatorr stents for TIPSS surgery as the supply available, as the two have a relatively similar promising efficacy in dealing with cirrhotics with PH.

Key words: Liver cirrhosis, Portal hypertension, Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic stent shunt, Combined stents, Viatorr stents, Therapy