Gastritis and Altered Motility; the Ability of a Mucosal Inflammatory Reaction to Alter Enteric Nerve and Smooth Muscle in the Gut

Dyspeptic symptoms such as pain, nausea, and vomiting, that accompany gastritis, and which are sometimes refractory to gastric acid suppression, may arise from disturbances in gastric motility. Indeed, motility disturbances have been described in several studies on patients with active gastric ulceration [6, 11]. In addition, Liebermann-Meffert and Allgöwer [9] demonstrated hypertrophy of muscle and structural alterations in enteric nerves in specimens resected from patients with gastric ulcer; Hiatt and Katz [7] showed increased numbers of mast cells in the muscle layers below gastric ulcer craters.