Gastric Antral Vascular Ectasia - Associated Conditions

Associated Conditions

GAVE is associated with a number of conditions, including portal hypertension, chronic renal failure, and collagen vascular diseases.

Watermelon stomach also occurs particularly with scleroderma, and especially the subtype known as systemic sclerosis. A full 5.7% of persons with sclerosis have GAVE, and 25% of all sclerosis patients who had a certain anti-RNA marker have GAVE. In fact:

Most patients with GAVE suffer from liver cirrhosis, autoimmune disease, chronic renal failure and bone marrow transplantation. The typical initial presentations range from occult bleeding causing transfusion-dependent chronic iron-deficiency anemia to severe acute gastrointestinal bleeding. —Masae Komiyama, et al., 2010.

The endoscopic appearance of GAVE is similar to portal hypertensive gastropathy, but is not the same condition, and may be concurrent with cirrhosis of the liver. 30% of all patients have cirrhosis associated with GAVE.

Sjögren's syndrome has been associated with at least one patient.

The first case of ectopic pancreas associated with watermelon stomach was reported in 2010.

Patients with GAVE may have elevated gastrin levels.

The Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center (GARD) states that pernicious anemia is one of the conditions associated with GAVE's, and one separate study showed that over three-fourths of the patients in the study with GAVE's had some kind of Vitamin B12 deficiency including the associated condition pernicious anemia.