A modified sonographic technique for assessment of gastric emptying of liquid

Ultrasound scanning is replacing scintigraphy in studies of gastric emptying of liquid, but both have considerable day-to-day variability. This study describes a modified ultrasound technique for assessing gastric emptying of liquid, and evaluates the inter- and intraindividual variation in emptying time.

On different days, each of 12 healthy volunteers had meals of 350 ml broth. The antral area was measured at sonography 5 times before the meal as a baseline, and every 1-4 min after the meal. The time until the antral area had decreased to 150% of baseline (T150) was determined and used as surrogate expression of gastric emptying time.

The mean T150 for a broth meal was 12.6 min (range 5-21) and 13.5 min (6-23) (first and second meal, respectively). The standard deviation of the differences between the 12 pairs of repeated measurements was 3.1 min and the coefficient of variation was 24%.

Ultrasound monitoring of antral size after a liquid meal is a well suited method for assessing gastric emptying of liquid.