Commentary on “Covered TIPS for secondary prophylaxis of variceal bleeding in liver cirrhosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials”

The meta-analysis on Covered TIPS for secondary prophylaxis of variceal bleeding in liver cirrhosis (1) compares covered TIPS with medical treatment consisting of drugs and endoscopic ligation. Previous meta-analyses (2-5) are now obsolete because they included studies which exclusively deployed bare stents and whose medical arms applied treatments that are no more state of the art (e.g., sclerotherapy).