Background: Gastric varices may bleed severely and are often associated with poor outcomes. The Baveno VII consensus encouraged non-invasive tests (NITs) to identify patients at risk of acute upper GI bleeding (AUGIB) due to ruptured varices and to avoid unnecessary screening upper GI endoscopic examination (UGIE). Recently, various NITs have been demonstrated as simple and non-invasive predictors of the presence of esophageal varices (EVs) and gastric varices (GVs) in patients with liver cirrhosis. Objectives:The current work aimed to evaluate the NITs that could predict the presence of GVs in patients with HCV related liver cirrhosis. Patients and Methods: 260 adult patients with HCV-related cirrhosis who were admitted for UGIE for either screening for varices or management of AUGIB were enrolled. Various NITs were calculated. Results: Liaoning score at a cutoff value > - 0.1635 was a statistically significant predictor of GVs with sensitivity=78.6%, specificity = 60.1%, positive predictive value (PPV) = 27.5 %, false discovery rate (FDR) = 72.5%, negative predictive value (NPV) = 93.6 %, false omission rate (FOR) = 6.4% & accuracy= 63.1%. RLLD at a cutoff ≤ 9.75 cm was a statistically significant predictor of GVs with sensitivity=73.8%, specificity= 54.1%, PPV= 22.3%, FDR= 77.7%, NPV= 90.9 %, FOR= 9.1% & accuracy= 54.2%. On multivariate regression analysis, Liaoning score & RLLD were significant predictors of GVs in patients with HCV related cirrhosis.
Conclusion: Liaoning score & RLLD are significant predictors of GVs in HCV Egyptian cirrhotic patients with very high negative predictive value & very low false omission rate.