Gastric mucosa after selective proximal vagotomy at stomach and duodenal ulcers

Biopsies obtained from gastric fundus of 25 patients suffering from gastric and duodenal ulcers, before and after (from 3 months to 2 years) selective proximal vagotomy with pyloroplastics were studied. The general morphologic, electron microscopic, histochemical and cytochemical methods revealed that selective proximal vagotomy caused nonspecific hemodynamic alterations in gastric mucosa, these alterations being observed during 3 postoperative months. In the following period the general morphology of gastric mucosa was predominantly identical to that in preoperative periods. Quantitative and functional activity of parietal and peptic cells were reduced both in the early and later periods of investigation, that being confirmed by lowering of acid and enzymes output after vagotomy. The mucous-producing function of gastric mucosa was unchanged.