Further studies of gastric hypersecretion in chronic renal failure

The effect of medical treatment has been studied in four patients with end-stage renal failure who suffered from severe spontaneous gastric hypersecretion, associated with very low levels of intraduodenal pH in two cases. Atropine decreased the overnight gastric acid output, but the residual acid secretion and duodenal content of acid remained dangerously high in one of the patients. Secretin inhibited the basal gastric secretion of acid in all cases and converted the pH of the duodenal contents to alkaline. While atropine cannot be used to control the gastric hypersecretion, secretin may prove to be valuable in the therapeutic management of the gastric hypersecretion of patients with chronic renal failure.