[Acid-related pathology and prolonged continuous gastric pH monitoring. Physiopathologic findings and therapeutic implications].

Long-term measurement of gastric acidity is useful for the investigation of acid-related disorders of the upper gastrointestinal tract and for the evaluation of antisecretory drugs. The assessment of this function with intragastric minielectrodes connected to ambulatory solid-state recorders is increasingly being used and is replacing the traditional aspirative methods. Antimony and glass electrodes provide equivalent results in vivo and thus they can be used interchangeably in every clinical condition. In normal subjects and in patients with acid-related disorders this technique has the great advantage to allow us an accurate knowledge not only of the level but also of the variations of gastric acidity over time, in relation to usual events of daily life. Clinical pharmacological studies permit to define exactly the potency and the duration of action of antisecretory compounds, the effects of various doses of the same drug and their best administration time.