Clinical Importance of Gastric Varices

Abstract

GASTRIC varices are being seen increasingly often in the patient presenting acute gastrointestinal hemorrhage. This increased frequency is associated with a greater number of cirrhotic patients found in hospital practice. In the cirrhotic patient hemorrhage is usually thought to be secondary to esophageal varices although peptic ulcer and cancer are always considered in the differential diagnosis. The erroneous diagnosis of 3 cases as gastric carcinoma when the underlying etiology was gastric varices led us to a review of this problem.Although it is true that many patients with early cirrhosis have no portal hypertension the caliber and extent of the . . .