Sonographic patent umbilical vein: lack of specificity for portal hypertension.

The sonographically patent umbilical vein is commonly considered a sign of portal hypertension and is held to be specific by some authors. We found sonographically patent umbilical veins in 11 patients with hepatic cirrhosis and esophageal varices, and in three subjects without liver disease and without esophageal varices. All subjects were submitted to Doppler flowmetry, which, with the investigation of the direction of venous flow, proved to be a simple discriminatory test.