The effect of pindolol and salmon calcitonin on experimental gastric ulcers in rats

Many different experimental models for the induction of gastric ulcers have been reported in rats. Most of these experimental designs are often not reproducible and the interpretation of the results obtained is sometimes difficult. In the present study, three different models were found to give reliable and reproducible results, which could be repeated at any time of the year with different experimenters performing the procedure. To date, these methods are in our opinion, the best in designing gastric ulcer experiments and assessing the effect of pharmacological active substances. Two pharmacological active substances were investigated in the present study, pindolol, a beta-blocking agent with intrinsic sympathomimetic activity and salmon calcitonin, a hormone influencing calcium homeostasis in blood. Using all three different models no effect was seen after pindolol administration, while a strong inhibitory effect on the formation of gastric ulcers was observed after salmon calcitonin. Following ligation of the pylorus, the ulcer formation rate was significantly decreased from 80 to 33% with a significant fall in ulcer index from 2 to 0.42 and reduction of the ulcer areas from 6.6 to 0.58 mm2 (p less than 0.05). In addition, following phenylbutazone administration the appearance of gastric ulcers was diminished after salmon calcitonin from 1.4 to 0.43 and in ulcer area from 4.5 to 0.95 mm2 (p less than 0.01). These three ulcer models used in the present study were found to be very reliable as compared with other models reported in the literature and tested in our laboratory.