[Portal hypertension and chronic arsenic exposure. A differential diagnostic challenge]

Abstract

We are reporting on a 62 year old female patient with portal hypertension (splenomegaly, esophageal varicosis) without signs of liver cirrhosis, who was hospitalized for sclerotherapy of her esophageal varices. Physical examination showed up palmar- and plantar hyperkeratosis and Morbus Bowen or basalioma-like skin lesions++. Anamnestic evaluation revealed, that the patient's psoriasis had been treated with arsenic for many years. This kind of treatment may have induced intraluminal proliferation and obliteration of the portal vein's endothelium, thus being the etiologic factor responsible for noncirrhotic portal hypertension in this patient.