[Post-cholecystectomy condition: duodeno-gastric reflux and bile acid concentration in the gastric juice]

In cholecystectomized patients highly significantly more frequently a duodenogastric reflux was found than in a group of patients with a healthy abdomen and a group of patients with cholelithiasis. The average concentration of bile acid in the gastric juice was after the removal of the gall-bladder manifoldly higher than in the control groups. The number of patients with concentrated reflux was also highly significantly larger than in patients with cholelithiasis not operated on and in patients with a healthy abdomen. Despite the high reflux rate and the high concentration of the bile acids influencing on the mucous membrane of the stomach the number of patients with ulcera ventriculi was not significantly larger than in a group of not cholecystectomized persons. These observations plead for the fact that the bile acids in the duodenogastric reflux alone are not to be regarded as an ulcerogenic agent, but that perhaps other components of the duodenal juice have to be considered as causes of lesions of the gastric mucous membrane.