Real-time gastric motility monitoring using transcutaneous intraluminal impedance measurements (TIIM)

The stomach plays a critical role in digestion, processing ingested food mechanically and breaking it up into particles, which can be effectively and efficiently processed by the intestines. When the motility of the stomach is compromised, digestion is adversely affected. This can lead to a variety of disorders. Current diagnostic techniques for gastric motility disorders are seriously lacking, and are based more on eliminating other possibilities rather than on specific tests. Presently, gastric motility can be assessed by monitoring gastric emptying, food transit, intragastric pressures, etc. The associated tests are usually stationary and of relatively short duration. The present study proposes a new method of measuring gastric motility, utilizing the attenuation of an oscillator-induced electrical signal across the gastric tissue, which is modulated by gastric contractions. The induced high-frequency oscillator signal is generated within the stomach, and is picked up transluminally by cutaneous electrodes positioned on the abdominal area connected to a custom-designed data acquisition instrument. The proposed method was implemented in two different designs: first a transoral catheter was modified to emit the signal inside the stomach; and second, a gastric retentive pill was designed to emit the signal. Both implementations were applied in vivo on two mongrel dogs (25.50 kg and 25.75 kg). Gastric contractions were registered and quantitatively compared to recordings from force transducers sutured onto the serosa of the stomach. Gastric motility indices were calculated for each minute, with transluminal impedance measurements and the measurements from the force transducers showing statistically significant (p < 0.05) Pearson correlation coefficients (0.65 ± 0.08 for the catheter-based design and 0.77 ± 0.03 for the gastric retentive pill design). These results show that transcutaneous intraluminal impedance measurement has the potential with further research and development to become a useful diagnostic technique.