Thirty-eight children, aged 1-15 years, with portal hypertension and recent variceal bleeding, were treated with repeated endoscopic sclerotherapy. Thirty-six of them had extrahepatic portal venous obstruction. Obliteration of varices was achieved in 35 (92%) patients requiring an average of 5.3 sessions per patient. Major complications occurred in seven patients, three of whom had oesophageal perforations and four had oesophageal stricture. Sclerotherapy significantly reduced the rate of rebleeding after the start of sclerotherapy and more so after variceal obliteration.