Background/aims: The aim of this work is to evaluate the repair of mucosal epithelium at the critical time of the beginning of reepithelization of stomach wound.
Methodology: Structural and ultrastructural evaluation of rat gastric mucosa repair was carried out with administration of placebo, cimetidine and pentagastrin in different groups of rats (Rattus norvegicus albinus) during the first 7 post-operative days. Following 48 hours of starvation and anesthesia by ethyl ether inhalation, the animals were submitted to laparotomy exposing the stomach. A fusiform gastric resection measuring 5 mm in length was performed in the fundus stomach wall. The surgical wound was sutured in 2 plans: muscular tunic and visceral serosa. The abdominal wall was also sutured in 2 plans: parietal serosa-abdominal musculature and skin. During 6 consecutive post-operative days, the placebo group rats received 1 ml of distilled water intragastrically; those of the cimetidine group 10 mg/kg of cimetidine; and, animals of the pentagastrin group, 250 micrograms/kg of pentagastrin by intraperitoneal injection. On the 7th post-operative day, rats were killed and fragments of the stomach wall containing transverse section of surgical wound were collected and processed for light microscopy and electron microscopies.
Results: At the beginning of gastric mucosal wound reepithelization cimetidine has better effect than that of pentagastrin.
Conclusions: Comparative mucosal morphology showed that cimetidine tends to accelerate the beginning of reepithelization of granulation tissue while pentagastrin delays reepithelization due to alteration of protective mucus and a provoking increase of granulation tissue.