Mucosal secretin content of the duodenum was measured using bioptic specimen in healthy controls and patients of peptic ulcer. Immunoreactive secretin in the duodenal mucosa was found greater in healthy controls (7.73±2.71 ng/mg dry wt., mean±s.D.) than in gastric ulcer patients (5.76±3.51 ng/mg dry wt.) and duodenal ulcer patients (5.54±2.48 ng/mg dry wt.), but the difference was not significant. There was no significant relationship between mucosal secretin and acid output in these patients.-mucosal secretin; gastric ulcer; duodenal ulcer; acid secretion It has been pointed out repeatedly that gastric acid secretion and gastric emptying time in gastric ulcer patients are different from those in duodenal ulcer patients. To explain acid hypersecretion found in duodenal ulcer, an abnormality in secretin metabolism was reported often. But most of the works done to date were based on the observation of pancreatic exocrine secretion (Dreiling 1953;Banks et al. 1967;Wormsley and Mahoney 1967; Peterson 1970;Wormsley 1970) or blood secretin level (Bloom and Ward 1975;Isenberg et al. 1977). There are few studies to attack this problem from mucosal secretin level. In the present study, the mucosal secretin content was measured by radioimmunoassay technique and compared with gastric secretion.
MATERIALS AND METHODSFour healthy subjects (3 men and 1 woman, mean age of 48) who were examined for screening of gastrointestinal malignancy, 10 gastric ulcer patients (8 men and 2 women, mean age of 44) and 16 duodenal ulcer patients (13 men and 3 women, mean age of 32) were included in this study. All subjects including 4 healthy controls had been informed beforehand of the purpose and outline of the study and their consent had been obtained. After an overnight fast, 6 to 8 specimens of duodenal mucosa were obtained from the anterior