gastric varices

Sclerotherapy has also been used in the treatment of gastric varices since the late 1980s.

Gastric varices are particularly difficult to diagnose during active bleeding.

Many patients with bleeding gastric varices present in shock due to the profound loss of blood.

Gastric varices can present in two major ways.

These evaluations may detect gastric varices that are asymptomatic.

Diagnosis of gastric varices is often made at the time of upper endoscopy.

Gastric varices are not uncommon in cirrhotic patients with portal hypertension.

A pathophysiologic, gastroenterologic, and radiologic approach to the management of gastric varices.

Bleeding from gastric varices responds poorly to injection sclerotherapy and often requires surgical intervention.

The gastric varices are accessed by endoscopy, which uses a flexible fibre-optic camera to enter the stomach.

Gastric varices: In people with severe liver disease, veins in the stomach may swell and bulge under increased pressure.

When gastric varices are symptomatic, however, they usually present acutely and dramatically with upper GI hemorrhage.

Initial treatment of bleeding from gastric varices focuses on resuscitation, much as with esophageal varices.

Gastric varices have also been obliterated with recurrent injection treatment with butyl cyanoacrylate.

Esophageal and gastric varices pose an ongoing risk of life-threatening hemorrhage, with hematemesis or melena.

Approximately 5% of patients have a risk of bleeding from gastric varices after successful obliteration of their oesophageal veins.

Gastric varices are dilated submucosal veins in the stomach, which can be a life-threatening cause of upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage.

In some cases, those with cirrhosis will go on to develop liver failure, liver cancer or life-threatening esophageal and gastric varices.

Secondly, patients with acute pancreatitis may present with gastric varices as a complication of thrombosis of the splenic vein.

A related device with a larger gastric balloon capacity (about 500 ml), the Linton-Nachlas tube, is used for bleeding gastric varices.

In very rare cases, gastric varices are caused by splenic vein occlusion as a result of the mass effect of slow-growing pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.

Patients with bleeding gastric varices can present with bloody vomiting (hematemesis), dark, tarry stools (melena), or rectal bleeding.

If cirrhosis is present, there may be coagulopathy manifested by a prolonged INR; both of these may worsen the hemorrhage from gastric varices.

Portacaval anastomoses: Esophageal varices, gastric varices, anorectal varices (not to be confused with hemorrhoids), and caput medusae.

The sources of non-variceal bleeding were oesophagitis 12, gastropathy seven, and Mallory-Weiss tears, peptic ulcers, gastric varices and rectal varices (two each).