Gastrin content and gastrin release. Studies on the antral content of gastrin and its release to serum during stimulation by food.

To examine the release of gastrin by food from antral mucosa eight patients were stimulated for 30 minutes by instillation of bovril during gastroscopy. Bovril caused a steady increase in serum concentrations of gastrin and an acute fall in the antral content of gastrin to 42+/-8.4 per cent after 10 minutes. After 10 minutes the antral content increased again towards the basal values. No change in gastrin components could be detected; component III (gastrin-17) constituted more than 95 per cent of the antral gastrins throughout the 30-minute period. The serum gastrin response to a steak meal was higher in 22 duodenal ulcer patients than in nine young normal subjects and it was higher postoperatively in eight patients studied before and after truncal vagotomy. In the duodenal ulcer patients whith the highest antral content of gastrin, the serum response to food was higher only during the early phase of the feeding response. It is concluded that the gastrin content of the antral mucosa represents an acute releasable pool of gastrin-17, which contributes only to the first 10-15 minutes of the feeding response. It does not reflect the total amount of gastrin released into the circulation during feeding.