Treatment of duodenal ulcer with a long-acting synthetic secretin: a pilot trial

In three male duodenal ulcer patients, the effects of a 4-week treatment with a long-acting synthetic secretin -- daily s.c. administrations of 10 clinical units secretin/kg b.w. -- were assessed symptomatically, endoscopically, immunologically, and by means of gastric and pancreatic secretory analyses. Improvement in epigastric pain was noted within a few days following the onset of secretin therapy. In all cases, duodenoscopy revealed complete healing of ulcers after a 2- to 3-week treatment period. Before therapy, cutaneous anaphylactoid reactions due to intradermal injections of secretin could be elicited in each subject; skin reactions were found mitigated after 4 weeks of therapeutic secretin administration thus suggesting some desensitisation. Neither gastric acid secretion nor pancreatic bicarbonate production were substantially influenced by the 4-week course of secretin therapy; consequently, prevention of ulcer relapse is rather unlikely to be achievable with the conditions employed in this study. However, it seems therapeutically promising that the duodenal ulcers under study showed complete healing already after 2-3 weeks of secretin administration.