Gastroparesis: concepts, controversies, and challenges

Patients with gastroparesis often present a challenge to the treating physician. Postprandial symptoms with nausea and vomiting may not only lead to nutritional and metabolic consequences, but also cause significant disruptions to social activities that often center around food. While the definition of gastroparesis focuses on impaired gastric emptying, treatment options that affect gastric function are limited and often disappointing. The female predominance, the mostly idiopathic nature of the illness with a common history of abuse, and coexisting anxiety or depression show parallels with other functional disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. These parallels provided the rationale for some initial studies investigating alternative therapies that target the brain rather than the stomach. This emerging shift in medical therapy comes at a time when clinical studies suggest that gastric electrical stimulation may exert its effects by modulating visceral sensory processing rather than altering gastric motility. Physiologic and detailed anatomic investigations also support a more complex picture with different disease mechanisms, ranging from impaired accommodation to apparent visceral hypersensitivity or decreased interstitial cells of Cajal to inflammatory infiltration of myenteric ganglia. Delayed gastric emptying remains the endophenotype defining gastroparesis. However, our treatment options go beyond prokinetics and may allow us to improve the quality of life of affected individuals.