Effect of loxiglumide on gallbladder contractile response to cerulein and food in humans

The present study investigated the effect of loxiglumide, a new selective cholecystokinin-receptor antagonist, on the gallbladder contractile responses to caerulein and to food in humans. In 6 healthy men, the gallbladder emptying driven by intravenous infusion of stepwise increasing doses of cerulein (10-80 ng/kg · h) and that induced by a 550-cal standard meal were monitored by ultrasonography. In both sets of experiments, the effect of loxiglumide was tested at various infusional rates against a control infusion of saline. An infusional rate of 2.5 mg/kg · h of loxiglumide abolished the gallbladder response even to maximal doses of cerulein, whereas a rate of 1.0 mg/kg · h counteracted the cholecystokinetic activity of cerulein up to the dose of 20 ng/kg · h. In postprandial experiments, the cholecystokinin antagonist dose-dependently inhibited the physiologic gallbladder contraction. The maximal gallbladder emptying, which always occurred 85 min after the meal, was 71.1% ± 3.3% of basal volume in control studies, 39.2% ± 1.8% during infusion of 2.5 mg/kg · h of loxiglumide, and 17.3% ± 5.9% when 5.0 mg/kg · h were infused. A dose of 7.5 mg/kg · h of loxiglumide was able to prevent any postprandial emptying of the gallbladder. The present study shows that a selective cholecystokinin receptorial blockade competitively antagonizes cerulein-induced gallbladder contraction and dose-dependently inhibits postprandial gallbladder emptying.