Gastric Varices Secondary to Splenic Vein Occlusion due to Pancreatic Diseases

occlusion because of the splenic vein, s anatomy. Sutton et al. reported that 35% of their cases of isolated splenic vein occlusion were caused by tumors and only 17% by pancreatitis [9]. On the other hand, Sakorafas et al. found that pancreatitis was the etiology in 87 (60%) of 144 cases, while pancreatic malignancy was detected in only [13] (9%) of the patients [7], and recent reviews have clarified acute or chronic pancreatitis to be the probable cause of splenic vein thrombosis in the majority of cases [18]. There is a possible pathogenetic mechanism implying the increased intra-abdominal pressure leading to compression of the splenic vein in the case of pancreatic pseudocyst [19,20].