Electrogastrography

Electrogastrography (EGG) is the recording and the interpretation of gastric electrical activity. Recordings can be made from the gastrointestinal mucosa, serosa, or skin surface. Because of its ease of use, cutaneous EGG has gained wide acceptance. Many technical problems have been solved to obtain a good graph. The EGG is usually evaluated in terms of changes in the EGG waves amplitude and frequency. Deviations from the normal frequency of 3 cycles per minute may be referred to as brachy- or tachyarrhythmia. The clinical use of EGG has been most widely evaluated in patients with gastroparesis and functional dyspepsia. Scintigraphic gastric emptying is considered the gold standard test for evaluating gastroparesis and 13C-octanoate breath test an ideal alternative because does not use ionizing radiation. While gastric emptying evaluates the efficiency of gastric emptying, EGG focuses on the underlying myoelectrical activity. Using both EGG and 13C-octanoate breath test will be possible to detect many subset of dyspeptic patients and to understand the underlying problem.