[Serum pepsinogen: its value as index of basal and stimulated gastric acid secretion (author's transl)].

Group I pepsinogen serum levels (PG I) and gastric acid outputs were determined before ("basal") and after pentagastrin or insulin stimulation in 13 patients with active duodenal ulcer and in 4 patients with hyperselective vagotomy. There was a statistically significant correlation between basal PG I serum level and basal acid output (r = 0,88, p less than 0,01) and between PG I serum level 45 min after stimulation and peak acid output (r = 0,68, p less than 0,01). However, the scattering of individual values was such that serum PG I cannot be used as an index of gastric acid secretion in clinical practice.

Immunochemical study and cellular localization of human pepsinogens during ontogenesis and in gastric cancers.

Gastric pepsinogens were studied by immunoenzymologic and immunohistochemical methods in non-cancerous adult gastric mucosa, in fetal stomach, and in gastric carcinomas. In noncancerous adult mucosa, immunoenzymologic methods showed that pepsinogen II (previously called Pg I-II) was found mostly in fundic or mediogastric extracts, whereas Pg IV was predominant in antropyloric extracts. Pg II was localized by immunofluorescence techniques in the chief cells of deep glands found near the muscularis.

[Alpha-fetoprotein. Significance and current importance].

The identification of AFP in the serum after birth is always due to a hepatoma or, more rarely, a teratocarcinoma. The increasing sensitivity of methods of immuno-chemical investigation and radioimmunoassay, permit today its identification in cases other than hepatoma. In the foetus, the hepatocyte or its precursor is the site of main synthesis but is not exclusive.