[Intestinal motility and the serum motilin levels after abdominal surgery]

Correlation of intestinal motility and serum motilin after abdominal surgery was investigated experimentally and clinically. The results were summarized as follows: The recovery of intestinal motility was faster in the dogs simply laparotomized than gastrectomized. The recovery of the small intestinal motility was followed by that of the large intestinal motility in the dogs. The intravenous infusion of the synthetic motilin markedly stimulated the intestinal motor activity in early postoperative period. Serum motilin levels significantly dropped one after abdominal surgery and rose again both in the dogs and the patients. The rate of increase of serum motilin levels at the postoperative period closely correlated with the recovery of the intestinal motility both in the dogs and the patients, that is, the higher the rate of increase was, the faster the recovery was.