[Clinical experience with blood vessel ligation in uncontrollable nosebleed].

Between 1978 and 1980 in the ENT clinics of Mannheim 19 patients with severe epistaxis have been treated surgically. Nearly always epistaxis was due to hypertonus or arteriosclerosis. Before ligation of maxillary or ethmoid arteries Bellocq's nasal packing was used. Ligation was always successful. After one year in three cases we observed a recidive of epistaxis, not due to bad surgical treatment but rich anastomoses of the maxillary artery. It is strange, that artery ligation is recommended, when posterior nasal packing fails, although its complications are more severe and frequent than those of chirurgical treatment including the anesthesiological risk. Ligation in severe epistaxis is effective and of low risk. It is an alternative to posterior nasal packing.