Swollen veins
Esophagogastric collateral vessels
Also searched as Esophagogastric collateral vessels.
You want them absent or small. They are silent until they are not.
In depth
When the liver route is blocked, blood carves alternative paths through thin-walled veins in the esophagus and stomach. They were never built for that pressure. Bleeding from them is a medical emergency.
What drives it
Portal pressure increases it.
Verbatim (pmc10311004): 'The downstream effect of increasing portal hypertension severity leads to various pathophysiological pathways, which result in the cardinal complications of cirrhosis, including ascites, variceal hemorrhage, and hepatic encephalopathy.' Baveno VII states 'there is NO indication at present to use NSBBs in patients without CSPH' — the intervention is gated on the pressure, not on the scan.
What it drives
It increases Liver decompensation.
10.1016/j.aohep.2023.101180 — verbatim (s1665268123002831): 'further decompensation should be considered as a new prognostic stage that carries a higher mortality than the one associated with the first decompensation event. the most frequent combination is variceal hemorrhage and ascites, with A 5-year mortality as high as 88%.'. doi 10.1016/j.aohep.2023.101180
Blends that modulate it
Each blend page names this pathway and carries the study behind its claim.
See it on the map
Open the causal map to follow this pathway upstream and downstream, arrow by arrow, each with its study.