Histopathologic changes are not specific for diagnosis of gastric antral vascular ectasia (GAVE) syndrome: a review of the pathogenesis and a comparative image analysis morphometric study of GAVE syndrome and gastric hyperplastic polyps.

We studied the nonspecific nature of the histologic findings in the gastric antral vascular ectasia (GAVE) syndrome by using a morphometric comparison with common gastric lesions including hyperplastic polyps and gastritis. Five clinicopathologically confirmed cases of GAVE syndrome and 41 cases of gastric hyperplastic polyps were diagnosed during a 5-year interval at Summa Health Systems (Akron, Ohio). These cases, as well as 16 randomly selected cases of nonspecific gastritis and 9 normal gastric antral biopsy specimens, were evaluated. A semiquantitative comparison of the light microscopic findings believed to be essential in diagnosis of GAVE syndrome, including vascular hyperplasia, mucosal vascular ectasia, intravascular fibrin thrombi, and fibromuscular hyperplasia, was performed. Image analysis morphometric measures of the area ratio (vascular area/total biopsy area), mean vascular area, and number of ectatic vessels per square millimeter of tissue were performed on the CAS 200 Image Analyzer (Becton Dickinson, San Jose, Calif). By morphometric and statistical parametric analysis, several histopathologic variables, including area ratio, mean vascular area, mucosal vascular ectasia, and fibromuscular hyperplasia, did not confidently differentiate the histologic features of gastric hyperplastic polyp from those of GAVE syndrome, but did apparently differentiate GAVE syndrome from gastritis and normal gastric mucosa. The propensity of gastric hyperplastic polyps to undergo prolapse changes and prolapse as one proposed mechanism for development of the GAVE syndrome lesion probably accounts for this morphologic similarity. Specific diagnostic histopathologic changes probably do not exist for the GAVE syndrome.