A simple method for the production of peptic ulceration in the rat

Abstract

In general, experiments on gastric ulcers in animals have one or more of the following purposes: (a) to produce lesions with the characteristics of peptic ulcers in man, (b) to evaluate specific aetiological factors, (c) to develop pharmacological techniques for the study of anti-ulcer agents (1). In 1945, Shay described a method for producing, in the rumen of the rat stomach, ulceration which resembled the chronic peptic ulcers found in man (2), and suggested that this procedure could be adopted readily for use as a rapid assay method for anti-ulcer agents (3, 4, 5, 6). The present authors have described a method (7) for the collection of gastric secretion in conscious rats, which is regarded as less unphysiological than the Shay technique. The purpose of this communication is to report the incidence of ulceration in the rumen of the rat stomach using this method (7), and to compare it with that obtained with the Shay method (2).