[Gastric emptying after oral contrast for abdominal tomography: report of six cases.]

Pulmonary injury due to gastric contents aspiration is a complication related to airway protective reflexes loss. Tomography imaging with digestive tract contrast requires special care for children below five years of age requiring general anesthesia or sedation to assure immobility during the procedure. General anesthesia induction or sedation after contrast ingestion may pose substantial risk for gastric contents bronchoaspiration, so contrast administration by gastric tube is often used after tracheal intubation, since time elapsed for emptying gastric contrast is unknown. This practice means increased anesthesia duration and leads to issues about the possibility of gastric emptying in less than one hour. Six patients submitted to abdominal tomography were evaluated concerning gastric emptying by tomographic slices in stomach topography to establish whether residual liquid contents remain in that organ after contrast administration.

Participated in this study 6 children undergoing abdominal tomography. Two conscious children presented expressive gastric liquid residual 50 and 45 minutes, respectively, after oral contrast ingestion. Four anesthetized children have also presented gastric liquid residual 40-50 minutes after contrast administration through gastric tube. In two of them remarkable gastric liquid content remained even after stomach aspiration.

In all studied cases, forty to fifty minutes were not enough for gastric emptying after contrast administration and even stomach aspiration trough gastric tube has resulted in significant residual liquid.