Regional gastric mucosal blood flow after parietal cell vagotomy in dogs

In this study we used the recently validated H₂ clearance method to perform endoscopic measurements of gastric mucosal blood flow (MBF) in anesthetized dogs before and after parietal cell vagotomy (PCV). Under resting conditions, MBV in the gastric corpus before PCV was 72 ± 5 ml/min/100 gm. This was not altered significantly at 4, 8, or 16 weeks after PCV, and there were not significant long-term changes in MBF on the greater or lesser curvatures of the corpus individually. Before PCV infusion of pentagastrin (8 μg/kg/hr) elicited increases in corpus MBF to 104 ± 4 ml/min/100 gm, accompanied by increases in gastric acid output from resting levels of 2.1 ± 0.9 to 38.6 ± 2.4 mEq/hr (p < 0.001). PCV significantly reduced pentagastrin-stimulated acid secretion by 50%, and secretory inhibition was accompanied by significant reductions in pentagastrin-stimulated MBV in the corpus. Pentagastrin did not alter antral MBFs before or after PCV. In summary (1) PCV does not elicit sigificant long-term changes in resting MBF in different regions of the gastric corpus, and (2) PCV significantly diminishes increases in acid output and corpus MBF that are normally stimulated by pentagastrin. These observations suggest that alterations in gastric MBF after PCV may be attributable to alterations in acid secretion.