Measurement of regional gastric mucosal blood flow by hydrogen gas clearance.

Gastric mucosal blood flow as measured by the hydrogen gas clearance method was compared with total gastric blood flow as determined by venous outflow in an isolated segment of canine stomach. During rest and histamine stimulation, hydrogen gas clearance correlated lineally with total gastric blood flow (p less than 0.001). Correlation analysis revealed a slope of 1.21 and a correlation coefficient of 0.97. The slope of 1.21 indicates that the ratio of mucosal to total gastric blood flow was approximately 82 percent. This fractional distribution of blood flow is in agreement with that previously reported by microsphere technique. In the intact stomach of anesthetized rats and dogs, antral mucosal blood flow was significantly higher than that of the corpus. This finding may, in part, contribute to the observation that acute stress erosion occurs predominantly in the corpus of the stomach. Histamine stimulation selectively increased the mucosal blood flow of the corpus, whereas antral mucosal blood flow remained unchanged. As a result, there was no significant difference in mucosal blood flow between the antrum and the corpus during histamine stimulation.