Gastric emptying in deformed stomach.

To evaluate the relationship between the onset of peptic ulcer and gastric emptying, some factors which were thought to regulate gastric emptying, i.e. the stage of the ulcer, the location of the ulcer and gastric acidity were studied in cases of gastric ulcer with deformed stomach and were proven to have little influence on gastric emptying. Further, the main cause of delayed gastric emptying was revealed to be the deformity itself, because the shortening of the distance from the gastric angle to the pyloric ring at the lesser curvature (sac-shaped stomach) and the indentation of the corpus ventriculi (hourglass-shaped stomach) significantly delayed gastric emptying. Moreover, it was found that the healing of gastric ulcer was delayed in cases of deformed stomach with delayed gastric emptying when the ulcer was at an active stage. Therefore the improvement of gastric emptying by some methods was thought to be necessary to promote ulcer healing and prevent ulcer recurrence in gastric ulcer patients who had a deformed stomach.