Gastric vein
Vena gastrica · Žaludeční žíla
Veins
Looks like
Veins running along the inner curve of the stomach (right and left gastric veins) to the portal vein.
What it does
Drain the stomach and, on the left, the lower oesophagus.
Keeping it well
In cirrhosis the left gastric vein feeds oesophageal varices, which can bleed heavily. Vomiting blood or black stool is an emergency.
Related conditions
- Acute liver failure
- Acute porphyria
- Alcohol withdrawal and delirium tremens
- Alcohol-related liver disease
- Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency
- Autoimmune hepatitis
- Bile duct cancer (cholangiocarcinoma)
- Biliary atresia
- Brucellosis
- Chronic venous insufficiency
- Cirrhosis
- Clotting disorders (thrombophilia & APS)
- Deep vein thrombosis
- Dengue & mosquito-borne fevers
- Ebola virus disease
- Echinococcosis (hydatid disease)
- Eye melanoma (uveal melanoma)
- Gilbert's syndrome
- Haemochromatosis & Wilson's disease
- Hepatic encephalopathy
- High cholesterol
- Intestinal worms & schistosomiasis
- Intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy
- Leishmaniasis
- Leptospirosis (Weil's disease)
- Liver abscess (pyogenic and amoebic)
- Liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma)
- Malaria
- Metabolic fatty liver disease (MASLD)
- Metabolic syndrome
- Myelofibrosis
- Newborn jaundice
- Phenylketonuria (PKU)
- Poisoning & overdose
- Portal vein thrombosis and Budd–Chiari syndrome
- Primary biliary cholangitis
- Primary sclerosing cholangitis
- Varicose veins
- Viral hepatitis (A, B, C, D, E)
- Yellow fever