Glucagon in Gastroenterology and Hepatology [antikvár]

Preface It was indeed a great pleasure for me to chair this workshop on Glucagon in Gastroenterology and Hepatology. In a way this meeting was a follow-up to one held in 1978. On that occasion the workshop participants defined the physiological role of glucagon, and discussed its uses in clinical gastroenterology, particularly as an aid to diagnosis in the areas of endoscopy and radiology. They discussed the spasmolytic effects of glucagon and its value in the treatment of biliary colic. They considered its possible hepatotrophic effect and pondered on the beneficial effect which its use might have in liver diseases. In the years since that first meeting several issues have been clarified. The usefulness of glucagon as an aid to gastro-duodenoscopy and ERCP now seems well-established. Somé exciting new developments have occurred, one of which is an assessment of the inhibitory effects of glucagon on gastric acid secretion. Somé impressive work has alsó been done on glucagon analogues and fragments. Improved techniques in the field of endoscopy have provided an accurate means of assessing the action of glucagon on the sphincter of Oddi, and thoughts are beginning to turn to the therapeutic role which glucagon might play in sphincter of Oddi disorders. Work has alsó progressed on the study of liver regeneration, and results are beginning to emerge from clinical studies of the use of glucagon in certain liver diseases. Taking all these points into account, it did indeed seem time to repeat the 1978 exercise, and to hold another workshop in order to discuss somé of them. The formát chosen for the meeting was the same as that of the first workshop. It was a small meeting attended only by specially invited participants, people who really had something important to say. As Professor Oriol Bosch so rightly pointed out in the preface of the proceedings of the