Bleeding from gastrointestinal ectopic varices is not associated with haemorrhage from oesophageal or gastric varices.

Introduction: Ectopic varices are those that appear in a different region of the gastroesophageal junction. Bleeding from ectopic varices is rare but is usually massive and deadly. Aim: To identify the possible factors that cause bleeding from ectopic varices in patients with portal hypertension. Material and methods: A cross-sectional and retrospective study; the data were collected between January 2004 and June 2014. We included patients with portal hypertension and gastrointestinal ectopic varices diagnosed by endoscopy. Results: We found 31 patients with gastrointestinal ectopic varices. Of these, 25 had liver cirrhosis, and six showed non-cirrhotic portal hypertension. There were 16 men and 15 women in the study. The median age of the patients was 60 years (range minimum-maximum of 27 to 80 years). Nineteen (61%) patients had rectal varices, 10 (32%) had duodenal varices, 1 (3%) had ileal varices, and 1 (3%) had colonic varices. We found bleeding in 4 (13%) of the 31 patients with ectopic varices; two belonged to the cirrhosis group, and the other two were from the non-cirrhotic portal hypertension group. Three of the 4 patients with bleeding from gastrointestinal ectopic varices had exhibited haemorrhage from oesophageal varices (odds ratio = 4.09, 95% CI: 0.37-44.78, p = 0.249), but none of them showed bleeding from gastric varices. Conclusions: Bleeding from gastrointestinal ectopic varices is not necessarily associated with bleeding from oesophageal or gastric varices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]