Gastric antrum

The gastric antrum is the distal, funnel-shaped portion of the stomach that connects the corpus to the pylorus [1, 10]. It plays a critical role in the digestive process by utilizing vigorous peristaltic contractions to grind food into chyme and regulating the chemical environment of the gastrointestinal tract through the secretion of the hormone gastrin by specialized G-cells [2, 6, 11]. Unlike the acid-secreting corpus, the antral mucosa primarily produces mucus and bicarbonate to protect the stomach lining from enzymatic digestion [5, 10]. Pathologically, the gastric antrum is a frequent site for chronic inflammation (gastritis), Helicobacter pylori infection, and the development of gastric adenocarcinoma [2, 5, 8]. While the antrum itself is an anatomical region rather than a specific molecular target, it is the anatomical focus for various therapeutic interventions, including proton pump inhibitors for mucosal protection and targeted biologics such as trastuzumab and zolbetuximab for malignancies localized within this region [4, 7, 14].

Other names

Pyloric antrumAntrum pyloriStomach antrumDistal stomach

Therapeutic agents used for conditions localized to the gastric antrum act through various mechanisms, including the inhibition of H+/K+-ATPase to reduce acidity, the antagonism of HER2 or VEGFR2 receptors to treat antral malignancies, and the targeting of Claudin 18.2 to inhibit tumor growth [4, 7, 8].