A study of regional gastric mucosal blood flow in a rat model of hepatic cirrhosis.

There is controversy surrounding the effects of portal hypertension on the level of perfusion to the gastric wall. This study maps the regional distribution of gastric mucosal and muscle blood flow measured using quantitative autoradiography in a carbon tetrachloride-induced rat model of hepatic cirrhosis. There was a significant increase in both corpus mucosal (124.3 +/- 13.8 vs. 84.8 +/- 4.2 ml.100 g-1.min-1) and muscle blood flow (50.9 +/- 3.6 vs. 33.4 +/- 2.3 ml.100 g-1.min-1) in animals with experimental cirrhosis compared with controls. There was no significant difference in the ratio of blood tracer concentration between the basal and luminal aspects of corpus mucosa in cirrhotic and control groups. We conclude that experimental cirrhosis is associated with gastric mucosal hyperperfusion and that "active" rather than "passive" congestion of the stomach wall may be a more appropriate description of the basic hemodynamic change in this model.