

Critical care nurse here. The answer is esophageal varices.
It’s the same physiological anomaly as hemorrhoids, except in your esophagus. Swollen, fragile veins caused by increased internal pressure. In the case of hemorrhoids, that pressure inside the veins is caused by straining too much when trying to poo. In esophageal varices, the increased pressure inside the esophageal veins comes from blood backing up from a swollen, scarred, and damaged liver. So we often see esophageal varices in end stage alcohol use disorder.
Horror stories abound in emergency departments and ICUs of having to do CPR on a patient massively hemorrhaging out of their mouth from esophageal varices. As soon as nurses I know saw this report, our immediate thought was, “Yep, varices.”
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/15429-esophageal-varices
Oh, we have lots of those! There are some drugs that we use to treat high blood pressure work by causing vasodilation.
What’s really interesting about this new drug is:
“…iloprost is not only a vasodilator but also reduces oxidative stress, suggesting this dual mechanism of action could help explain its impressive potential as a frostbite treatment.”
It not only dilates blood vessels, it also directly treats reperfusion injury, which is really neat.