Abstract
The effects of various factors in regeneration of gastric mucosa in patients who have chronic renal failure (CRF) and have been treated with hemodialysis (HD) , were studied. The gastric mucosa obtained by endoscopy was immunohistologically stained. The CRF patients were divided into 3 groups according to the length of HD therapy. Group I included those who had received HD for more than 4 years (n＝25) , Group II included those who had received HD for less than 4 years (n＝20) , and Group III included those who had never been treated with HD (n＝13) . On immunohistological studies, their speciments of gastric mucosa gave positive stain for ki-67. The positive labeling index (LI) of ki-67 in the HD group was greater than 80%, while it was 20.6% in non-HD group. However, there was no significant differences in mucosa-regenerating factors［gastrin, cholecystokinin (CCK) and epidermal growth factor (EGF) ］between the HD group and non-HD group. On the other hand, the percentage of patients in the HD group who were infected with Helicobacter pylori was lower than that in the non-HD group. These results suggest that HD therapy in CRF patients induces regeneration of the gastric mucosa, probably by removing those factors that contribute to atrophy of the gastric mucosa.
