[Plasma gastrin and secretin levels in patients with carcinoma of the esophagus before and after operation].

Twenty-two patients with esophageal cancer (8: preoperative, 8: one-month after surgery, and 6: more than 3 months after surgery) were orally loaded with 50 g of glucose, to determine the plasma gastrin levels. They were also loaded with oral 0.1N hydrochloride preoperatively and also one month after operation to examine the secretion kinetics of plasma secretin. In addition, the correlation between the G-cell (gastrin secretory cell) population in the pyloric region of the postoperative intrathoracic stomach and the plasma gastrin was investigated. The following results were obtained. Hypergastrinemia developed one month after surgery, but after 3 months or later, plasma gastrin levels almost returned to normal. Plasma secretin levels tended to decrease postoperatively; however, no statistically significant differences were observed. G-cell stain by the enzyme antibody method revealed hyperplasia of G-cells in some of the hypergastrinemic cases without accompanying atrophy of the pyloric mucosa and/or the intestinal epithelial metaplasia, although there were some hypergastrinemic cases with a decrease of G-cells due to the atrophy of the pyloric mucosa and/or the intestinal epithelial metaplasia. In the latter cases, gastrin was thought to be secreted probably from the duodenal mucosa.