[Detailed analysis of human pancreatic secretions collected by retrograde catheterization. Parallel or non-parallel excretion of digestive enzymes?].

Pancreatic juices were collected by selective reverse catherism of the chief pancreatic duct in two patients, one free from pancreatic disease and the other having a pancreas cancer. They were analysed in detail especially in order to get information on the mechanism of enzyme excretion. The variations of the digestive enzyme activities (amylase, lipase, trypsin, chymotrypsin, carboxypeptidase A and B) were not superimposable among them or with the fluctuations of the protein concentration in the pancreatic juice samples. These results agree with a non-parallel enzyme-excretion mechanism by the pancreas. However deep electrophoresis analyses of pancreatic juice samples showed that the ratio of each digestive enzyme concentration remained almost constant in the same patient. This observation disagrees with the above conclusion and suggests that the data obtained by using classical methods for estimating digestive enzyme activities have to be considered prudently. By another way, two main significant differences were reported by analysing the ionic composition of the pancreatic juice samples following their origin. The pancreatic juice samples of the patient having a pancreas cancer had a lower and more variable Na+ concentration than those coming from the patient who was free from pancreas disease. They had a HCO3- concentration which was almost constant, contrary to what was observed for the pancreatic juice secreted by the other patient.