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Gastric Absorption of 3,4-Benzpyrene

I. The Effect of Physiological Processes on Absorption

( Department of Anatomy and Department of Roentgenology, Second Medical Clinic, University of Helsinki, and the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Åbo Akademi, Finland)

Gastric absorption of 3,4-benzpyrene in mice and cats was investigated following gastric instillation of a single dose of the hydrocarbon, taking into account the physiologic knowledge of absorption of ingested material in different parts of the gastrointestinal tract. The rate of absorption was determined directly in the wall of the normal stomach with fluorescence microscopy.

No signs of absorption by the gastric glandular mucosa were observed after administration of the hydrocarbon in natural fats or in liquid petrolatum. These results are in agreement with the observations made in feeding experiments in which adenocarcinomas were not produced when fats were used as solvents for the carcinogen.

On the contrary, benzpyrene was able to penetrate into the glandular mucosa of the stomach when dissolved in fats or in light petrolatum and emulsified in natural bile or solubilized by some bile constituents (both natural and synthetic ones).

A strong absorption occurs when synthetic substances possessing simultaneously certain lipo- and hydrophilic characteristics, with the aid of which carcinogenic hydrocarbons are brought into aqueous solutions, are used as vehicles for the hydrocarbon. It is of great significance that these substances have certain common properties with bile. However, the blue fluorescence disappears comparatively rapidly from the glandular mucosa of the normal stomach.

The results have been discussed with particular reference to some physiologic facts and pathologic alterations in the stomach.

Received 1/15/51.