Histamine and mast cell study in the gastric tissue of south Indian patients suffering from duodenal ulcer with pyloric stenosis.

Patients undergoing surgery for pyloric stenosis secondary to duodenal ulcer were the subjects for the study. Two pieces of full thickness gastric wall (all coats) were obtained at laparotomy. The pieces were immediately split into two halves. One of these was used for histamine assay where as the other was used to study the mast cell population. Histamine content and mast cell population was found to be less in gastric mucosa of our patients as compared to values from normal human gastric mucosa. There was lack of correlation between mast cell population and histamine content which suggests that there could be some other storage sites for histamine.