Abnormalities of interdigestive motility complex and increased duodenogastric reflux in gastric ulcer patients

Abstract

Just as cyclic changes in motility and secretions occur during fasting, recent evidence demonstrates that duodenogastric reflux during fasting is also cyclic and related to the motility and secretory variations. We investigated the characteristics of the migrating motility complex and duodenogastric reflux in 17 patients with gastric ulcer and compared these characteristics to those of 16 healthy subjects. We found three abnormalities of the complex in patients with gastric ulcer: (1) the antral motility was significantly decreased during the phase II of the complex (PP<0.05) than that of the controls. We observed no relationship between the ulcer activity, the location of the crater, and the motility or reflux abnormalities.