Portal hypertension is a major consequence of any chronic liver disease and it represents the main mechanism of complication occurrence. Therefore, the assessment of portal hypertension presence is one of the most important steps in the management of any chronic liver diseases. The most accurate tool for portal pressure assessment is hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG) measurement, which ha...

Portal hypertension (PHT) is a common and serious clinical syndrome often associated with chronic liver diseases. Portal hypertension may be defined as portal pressure gradients of 12 mmHg or more in the veins of the portal system caused by obstruction in the liver from intrahepatic or extrahepatic portal venous compression or occlusion (often associated with chronic liver disease), causing enl...

This study reports our experience of 8 cases of extrahepatic portal hypertension after 273 orthotopic liver transplantations in 244 adult patients over a 10-year period. The main clinical feature was ascites, and the life-threatening complication was variceal bleeding. Extrahepatic portal hypertension was caused by portal vein stenosis in 6 patients, and left-sided portal hypertension in 2 pati...

The portal hypertension is responsible for many of the manifestations of liver cirrhosis. Some of these complications are the direct consequences of portal hypertension, such as gastrointestinal bleeding from ruptured gastroesophageal varices and from portal hypertensive gastropathy and colopathy, ascites and hepatorenal syndrome, and hypersplenism. In other complications, portal hypertension p...

Portal hypertension, defined as an increase in pressure within the portal vein, is a detrimental complication in liver diseases. The increased intrahepatic resistance as a consequence of cirrhosis is the primary cause of portal hypertension (Figure 1). Once it is developed, portal hypertension influences extrahepatic vascular beds in the splanchnic and systemic circulation. Two major consequenc...

To determine whether the "congestive" gastropathy associated with portal hypertension showed distinctive histological features independent of inflammatory gastritis, endoscopic biopsy specimens of gastric mucosa from 23 patients with portal hypertension and 25 patients with non-ulcer dyspepsia were examined. Active chronic gastritis associated with Campylobacter pylori was found in three patien...

During the last 25 years, there have been important developments in visualising the portal vein, in examining its contents, and in measuring the pressure of blood flowing within it. Radiologists have set the scene and now is the time of the scanner. These technical advances have been applied to the diagnosis and treatment of patients with portal hypertension, and many ingenious surgical techniq...