الفهرس 
? Portal HypertensionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Portal hypertension is defined as the pathological elevation in portal venous pressure, in which the pressure in the portal venous system is at least 5 mm Hg higher than the pressure in the inferior vena cava. Portal hypertension becomes clinically significant when the portal venous pressure gradient exceeds a threshold value of 10 mmHg.
Portal hypertension may result into many vascular decompensation complications which may be serious such as variceal bleeding and clinical decompensation such as hepatic encephalopathy (HE) and ascites.
Portal hypertensive gastropathy refers to changes in the mucosa of the stomach in patients with portal hypertension. These changes in the mucosa include friability of the mucosa and the presence of ecstatic blood vessels at the surface. Patients with portal hypertensive gastropathy may experience bleeding from the stomach, which may uncommonly manifest itself in vomiting blood or melena.
Surprisingly, neither the presence of OVs nor the degree of PHG were found to have any statistical significance regarding the level of fasting serum gastrin level among the cirrhotic patients with PHG.
It was also found that, neither the presence of esophageal varices nor the degree of ascites had any statistical significance regarding the level of fasting serum gastrin level among the cirrhotic patients without PHG.
Severity of PHG and fasting serum gastrin level in relation to presence of hypertension was found to be statistically insignificant in cirrhotic patients with PHG.
On the other hand, fasting serum gastrin level was significantly higher in hypertensive cirrhotic patients without PHG in comparison to non-hypertensive cirrhotic patients without PHG.
As for the comparison between cirrhotic group with PHG and cirrhotic group without PHG regarding fasting serum gastrin level, it revealed that the best cut off value was found to be > 95.6 pg/ml with area under the curve (AUC), 0.786; Sensitivity, 56%; Specificity, 100%; Positive predictive value (PPV), 100%; Negative predictive value (NPV), 72.5%.