Effect of Vagotomy on the Gastric Secretory Response to Endogenous Gastrin

Abstract

THE BENEFICIAL effect of vagotomy in the surgical treatment of peptic ulcer was first ascribed by Dragstedt and his associates¹ to reduction in the secretion of gastric juice brought about by removal of the nervous or psychic phase of gastric secretion. In subsequent years, new knowledge of the physiology of gastric secretion has disclosed an interrelationship between the nervous and hormonal mechanisms for secretory stimulation so that the effects of vagotomy are more far reaching than was at first supposed. It is now clear that vagus impulses stimulate the direct release of gastrin^2,3 into the blood stream so that vagotomy in addition to removing the nervous stimulation of the parietal cells also withdraws the hormonal stimulation due to this "vagal release of gastrin." In 1948, Oberhelman and Dragstedt⁴ reported studies on the effect of vagotomy on the gastric secretory response to histamine stimulation in pouch dogs and