Gastrointestinal side-effects of prostaglandins

The beneficial effects of prostaglandins in peptic ulcer disease were appreciated more than a millennium ago by Chinese physicians who used the semen of young adults to treat patients with dyspepsia. The mode of administration, the patient acceptability and side-effects are not recorded. It is now known that semen contains 13 naturally occurring prostaglandinsl. More recently, many derivatives of prostaglandins have been, and are being, studied for use in the treatment of alimentary diseases such as peptic ulceration and oesophagitis, because it has been shown that prostaglandins of the A, E and I types inhibit gastric secretion2. Perhaps more important, studies are now under way to determine whether prostaglandin derivatives can protect the mucosa of the upper alimentary tract against the ubiquitous damage caused by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)3.