[Protein loss in gastrectomized patients with or without steatorrhea]

Intestinal protein loss was determined in a group of patients with gastric resection by measuring the faecal radioactivity in the stools of 4 days, after intravenous administration of Cl3Cr51. The patients studied were divided in three groups: a) 10 healthy control subjects, b) 5 patients with gastrectomy BII without steatorrhoea, c) 15 patients with gastrectomy BII with steatorrhoea. In group (a) faecal radioactivity was 0.36 +/- 0.26% of the administrated dosis; in group (b) the value was 1.24 +/- 1.07% and in group (c) the activity was 1.40 +/- 1%. Statistically significative difference between groups (a) and (b) ((p less than 0.05) was found between groups (a) and (c) the difference was highly significative (p less than 0.001). However there was no significative difference between groups (b) and (c) (p less than 0.8). We think that serum protein intestinal loss may be, one of the causes of the hipoalbuminemia present in some patients who underwent partial gastrectomy because of gastroduodenal ulcer. Otherwise we did not find a relation between protein loss and steatorrhoea.