[Management of high risk Budd-Chiari syndrome with mesojugular shunt: report of 16 cases].

Standard procedures to treat Budd-Chiari syndrome caused by localized occlusions of the inferior vena cava and/or hepatic venous occlusion have been established. However, for those caused by long segmental occlusion or constriction accompanying with large amount of ascites, malnutrition, hypoalbumineamia, even pleural effusion, and breathlessness even orthopnea, no proper approaches are available. Hereby we report a new method of mesojugular shunt. Sixteen patients have been treated resulting in excellent result in 53% of patients and fair in 20%. The operative mortality was 13%. We consider mesojugular shunt is a proper means for relieving high risk patients with Budd-Chiari syndrome.