Relationships between blood flow and secretion in the isolated perfused canine pancreas

1. Stimulation by a continuous intra-arterial infusion of secretin caused a marked vasodilatation in the pancreato-duodenal preparation or in the isolated pancreas perfused with whole heparinized blood. There was no difference in the vasomotor effects of two unequally purified preparations of secretin. The fact that the vasodilatation was still observed when the duodenum was removed proved that the haemodynamic effect of secretin was initiated in the pancreas itself.2. The secretory response of the pancreas to a given dose of secretin was larger when the blood pressure was kept constant by increasing the blood flow than when the blood pressure was allowed to fall by maintaining the blood flow at a fixed value. It is concluded that the vasodilatation plays a role in the functional regulation of the pancreatic response to secretin.3. The correlation between blood flow and arterial pressure on the one hand, and the secretory response to secretin on the other, was not mediated by the control of respiration since there was no variation in oxygen uptake in response to a variation in the blood flow. This correlation was still observed when the venous blood was discarded and therefore could not be explained by variations in the rate of recirculation of secretin. It was observed too in experiments where the duodenum was removed, the pancreas alone being introduced into the perfusion apparatus, which indicated that this effect was not mediated by a control of the release of secretin by the duodenum.