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SUMMARY We measured basal and pentagastrin‐stimulated acid secretion, as well as basal and meal‐stimulated plasma gastrin concentration to determine, in 67 patients affected by resistant duodenal ulcer, whether their condition could be related to gastric acid secretion and/or gastrin‐related syndromes. We then compared them to 46 duodenal ulcer control patients. The outpatients were investigated consecutively. The resistant duodenal ulcer patients differed from the controls only in their higher complication rates (bleeding or perforation, P < 0.05). We identified five patients in the resistant duodenal ulcer group with Zollinger‐Ellison syndrome and 12 with antral G cell hyperfunction, whereas in the control group only one patient was affected by antral G cell hyperfunction. IgG anti‐Helicobacter pylori antibodies were positive for the presence of infection in 7 of the hypergastrinaemic patients. When Zollinger‐Ellison syndrome or antral G cell hyperfunction were excluded, no differences could be found in gastric acid secretion, or basal and meal‐stimulated plasma gastrin levels, between the resistant and control duodenal ulcer patients, except for basal acid hypersecretion (resistant duodenal ulcer 16%vs duodenal ulcer 2%P= 0.0144). In the presence of duodenal ulcer disease resistant to H2‐blockers, it is mandatory to measure basal plasma gastrin concentration since it was possible to diagnose the gastrin‐related syndromes, Zollinger‐Ellison syndrome and antral G cell hyperfunction, in 26% of this group of patients.

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