Gastric inhibitory polypeptide (GIP), insulin, and blood glucose after ingestion of glucose or fat were examined in patients after gastrectomy with esophagojejunostomy or esophagoduodenostomy. After a glucose load patients without duodenal passage had significantly higher glucose and significantly smaller insulin levels than patients with duodenal passage. The fasting levels of serum immunoreactive GIP were moderately elevated and reached significantly higher levels after oral glucose ingestion in both gastrectomized groups as compared with normal subjects. In patients with preserved duodenal passage serum IR-GIP levels peaked earlier and were significantly higher than in patients without duodenal passage. In contrast to the finding after oral glucose ingestion, the IR-GIP response to an oral fat load was nearly twofold greater in patients without duodenal passage than in patients with duodenal continence. Thus, glucose-induced GIP release is mainly of duodenal and fat-induced GIP release mainly of jejunal origin. This suggests the existence of two types of GIP cells.

A two-marker technique was used to determine gastric emptying rate and postprandial duodenogastric reflux rate without transpyloric intubation. The fractional gastric emptying rate in five dogs with normal pylorus was 3.0 +/- 0.3 (SE) X 10(-2)/min. In three dogs with circular pylorectomy, it was 5.8 +/- 0.8 X 10(-2)/min (P less than 0.01). The duodenogastric reflux rates were 0.72 +/- 0.23 (SE) ml/min and 3.21 +/- 0.97 ml/min. (P less than 0.05). The percentage of the test meal that by to-and-fro movements across the pylorus was emptied more than once was 2.3 +/- 1.0 (SE) in normal dogs and 15.5 +/- 2.4 after pylorectomy (P less than 0.005). Because the higher emptying rate was accompanied by more to-and-fro movements, the amount of the meal remaining in the stomach, and thus net gastric emptying, was similar in both groups. It is concluded that pylorectomy increases both reflux rate and emptying rate. This effect on emptying can only be detected by a method that includes the measurement of to-and-fro movements across the pylorus. The pylorus thus appears to prevent postprandial duodenogastric reflux and to slow gastric emptying.

From 1982 to 1992 103 patients with ovarian cancer stage FIGO III have been treated. In 38% of the patients there was no residual tumour postoperatively, in 40.8% the residual tumour was smaller than 2 cm. In 51.5% bowel resections were necessary, a stoma was unavoidable in just one case. A lymphadenectomy (pelvic, paraaortic or combined) was done in 46.6% of the patients. Postoperatively, 54.4% of the patients received a platinum-based chemotherapy, in the other patients other kinds of chemotherapy were applied. A radiation of the whole abdomen was done only in 3.9%. A median survival time for more than 60 months could be achieved in tumour-free patients due to the increased radical operations in combination with the platinum based chemotherapy. The lymphadenectomy seems to prolong the survival time of the patients. The positive nodal status is definitely unfavourable for the prognosis. By this therapeutic approach, an increased survival time with a good life quality can be achieved.

The effect of a transpyloric tube on duodenogastric reflux and on gastric emptying was studied in dogs with either an intact pylorus, a Heineke-Mikulicz pyloroplasty, or an extramucosal circular pylorectomy. In fasting dogs, duodenogastric reflux was 10 times smaller than after feeding a liquid lipid meal. A transpyloric tube increased the reflux rate in fasting, but not in fed dogs, while pylorectomy increased reflux rate and intragastric accumulation of a duodenal marker in fed, but not in fasting dogs. It is concluded, therefore, that in the dog (1) methods to measure duodenogastric reflux should not involve the necessity to position a transpyloric tube and (2) the pylorus and adjacent structures are involved in keeping duodenogastric reflux at a low level.