Clinical Chemistry, Vol 31, 1135-1140, Copyright © 1985 by American Association for Clinical Chemistry

On the natural history of hypergastrinemia

G Lindstedt, D Runsteen, PA Lundberg, C Bengtsson, L Lapidus, E Nystrom and AF Kilander

We determined total gastrin and pepsinogen I in frozen serum samples from 175 overnight-fasted women 54 years old, and from 81 overnight- fasted women 60 years old, who took part in a population study in 1968- 69. We also assayed samples from some of these women, who participated in clinical follow-up studies in 1974-75 and 1980-81: all of the women in the initial group whose serum gastrin concentration exceeded the 85th centile value and, as a reference group, a randomized subsample of women whose initial serum gastrin concentration was less than the 80th centile. Samples with total gastrin concentration greater than 400 ng/L were also assayed for gastrin-17 and gastrin-34. We found that: a pronounced increase of serum gastrin persisted throughout the study period for most of these postmenopausal women, indicating that conversion of type A gastritis (antrum-sparing) to pan-gastritis is uncommon; unexplained high concentrations of pepsinogen I in relation to the reference interval for young and middle-aged adults, as well as in relation to serum gastrin, were common; and the gastrin-17/gastrin- 34 ratio is not correlated with the outcome of pronounced hypergastrinemia.