The gastric mucosal hydrophobicity

which may be of importance in mucosal dufenco has been assessed experimentally in mice and clinical cndoscopic specimens by measuring the contact angle of normal saline drops on the mucosal surface with a microscope and goniometer.The contact angle is increasing with (he enhancement of the surface hydrophobicily.It was observed that the contact angle of mouse or human gastric mucosa in vitro unchanged significently in controlled experimental condition for as long as 2 hours.In 4 mice

the contact angle was 25.08 + 4.44?( + SD) and the coefficient of variation was 17.7%.In 38 patients with chonic superficial gastritis

the mean contact angle was 51.1 + 17.82? and the differences between two biopsies in each of the 38 cases present skewuess distribution with a median of 3.5.We thus conclude that the method is feasible to measure the surface hydrophobicity of human endoscopic biopsy specimens with pood replication