Draining as it does into the portal venous system, it is not surprising that most of the gastrointestinal tract should show a variety of changes in portal hypertension (PH). The latest entry to this slowly lengthening list of abnormalities is the 'portal hypertensive polyp' (PHP), described in two reports in the current issue of this Journal [1, 2]. As with any newly described entity, a bevy of questions immediately comes up.PHP have been reported to occur in the stomach and less commonly elsewhere in the bowel [3,4]. They have most often been associated with cirrhotic PH but do occur in extrahepatic portal venous obstruction too [5]. Are they a distinct entity? The reports under review, dealing with gastric and duodenal lesions, and a handful of preceding ones make a case that they are. However, there have been no clear diagnostic criteria for PHP. Microscopically, gastric PHP have been diagnosed based on the presence of variable foveolar hyperplasia of the epithelium along with underlying vascular proliferation. So the question arises: are these lesions unique to PH or do they simply represent hyperplastic polyps arising on a background of vascular changes of PH such as portal hypertensive gastropathy (PHG) or gastric antral vascular ectasia (GAVE)? The latter possibility certainly cannot be ruled out. In their retrospective analysis, on 631 patients with PH, Amarapurkar et al. found gastric and duodenal polyps in 16 (2.53 %) patients. Nine of these were diagnosed as PHP, six as hyperplastic polyp, and one as fundic gland polyp. On comparing PHP with PHG mucosa devoid of polyps, the authors found that the density and diameter of capillaries in the lamina propria were similar but that such changes were significantly more frequent (p<0.001) in these two groups compared to polyps in patients without PH. The morphometric and special staining characteristics of PHP presented in the paper do not provide any support to the contention that the vascular changes seen in PHP are distinct from those seen in PHG or GAVE. Nor does the comparison, less detailed nonetheless, between hyperplastic polyps and PHP as reported by Lam et al. in an earlier report confirms that these two lesions are distinct. Did the six hyperplastic polyps reported by Amarapurkar et al. differ from the PHP in any characteristics other than the vascularity? The paper does not comment on this. Again, there was no difference in the age, gender, the frequency of polyps, and their histological types in the portal hypertensive and non-portal hypertensive groups. The fact that the prevalence of all types of polyps in the portal hypertensive and non-portal hypertensive group (2.53 % vs. 3.3 %, p=0.4) was similar also casts doubts as to whether these are unique lesions developing in the presence of PH over and above the other types of polyps seen in the general population. Also, PHP in the stomach and those in the small bowel may not show similar histological features except for the increased, dilated subepithelial capillaries. For example, some earlier repo...