Clinical studies on the circadian variation of blood gastrin levels

Abstract

Circadian variations of blood gastrin levels at 4-hour intervals for 24 hours were studied in patients with peptic ulcer and in healthy control subjects under non-stimulated conditions directly before each meal and during the night time. The variation patterns were classified into 4 groups; Type A which showed little variation of blood gastrin levels during whole day and were divided into Type A-l having higher gastrin level and Type A-2 having lower gastrin level, Type B which showed a single peak value during the day-time, Type C which showed two or more peak values within the whole day, and the group of unclassifiable patterns. These patterns were found to be correlated with the disease states of gastric and duodenal ulcers, especially with gastric acid secretory function. Discussions were made on the circadian variation patterns of the blood gastrin levels in connection with some other pathological physiological results obtained during the studies.