A simple and efficient method of preparing patients with gastric cancer for abdominal MRI examination

This study aims to evaluate the advantages of administering 200 ml of 5% dextrose water in improving pre-examination training efficiency, examination efficiency, success rate, and image quality of MRI scans in patients with gastric cancer.

This study included 122 gastric cancer patients who underwent upper abdominal MRI from March 2022 to March 2024. These patients were divided into two groups: a study group of which patients had 200 ml of 5% dextrose water before MRI scan (n = 59) and a control group with only routine preparations (n = 63). Group differences in the pre-examination training efficiency, examination efficiency, examination success rate and image quality of MRI scan were performed using chi-square test and T-test.

We found there were statistically significant group differences in the success rate of MRI examination (96.6% in the study group and 85.7% in the control group, P = 0.036), the average time of pre-examination training before MRI examination (7.73 ± 6.35 min in the study group and 12.03 ± 5.39 min in the control group, P = 0.001), the average completion time of MRI examination (45.22 ± 5.85 min in the study group and 50.25 ± 8.45 min in the control group, P = 0.001), the rate of excellent image quality (66.1% in the study group and 44.4% in the control group, P = 0.038), the scores of image quality (3.92 ± 0.96 in the study group and 3.13 ± 1.33 in the control group, P = 0.0006).

Our findings demonstrated that administering 200 ml of 5% glucose water before MRI examination in gastric cancer patients improved the pre-examination training efficiency, the efficiency and success rate of MRI examination and image quality, highlighting its potential to optimize the patient care in radiological examinations.