Sclerotherapy

Sclerotherapy is a technique of medical treatment, in which irritating chemical agents are injected or otherwise placed in body structures that need to be blocked or obliterated. Some of the first applications were to varicose veins and hemorrhoids. The method has been extended to bleeding blood vessels, as well as to effusions of body cavities.

Tetracycline was among the first agents used for pleural effusion and peritoneal effusion, but has been replaced, in the U.S., by bleomycin.s.