Case report of gastric antral vascular ectasia (GAVE)

Abstract

Gastric antral vascular ectasia (GAVE) is a rare clinical disease which can cause recurrent upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract bleeding. It is responsible for about 4% of non-variceal upper GI haemorrhages. As one of the vascular diseases that happened in stomach, GAVE was also named as watermelon stomach (WS) for its characteristic endoscopic performance. Compared with portal hypertensive gastropathy (PHG) which with similar performances under endoscopy but often appeared as the result of portal hypertension, the etiology of GAVE is unknown. Recent years with further research it received several presumptions according to its histopathological features. Here we will introduce the disease systematically through two cases.