Abstract

Congestive gastropathy is a frequent cause of upper gastrointestinal haemorrhage in patients with portal hypertension. The pathogenesis is thought to involve venous congestion with gastric mucosal capillary dilatation. We studied the relation between gastric mucosal capillary dilatation, measured morphometrically, and endoscopic appearances in 74 patients with portal hypertension and 20 control subjects. We also investigated the frequency of gastric colonisation with Helicobacter pylori. Mucosal capillaries in patients were significantly dilated compared with control subjects (p less than 0.001) but the degree of dilatation was not related to the severity of the endoscopic appearances. H pylori was identified in 19 of 74 (26%) patients but was not related to the severity of the endoscopic appearances. These results suggest that other factors in addition to mucosal venous and capillary congestion are important in the pathogenesis of endoscopic congestive gastropathy and that gastric colonisation with H pylori is unlikely to be one of these factors.