High incidence of gastric reflux during hepatobiliary imaging in pancreatitis

A review of 100 consecutive hepatobiliary studies revealed eight cases in which there was prominent gastric reflux of the Tc-99m diisopropyl-IDA beginning 0.5 to 2.0 hours into the procedure. Five of these individuals had pancreatitis (four acute, one chronic). Hence, pancreatitis was involved in five out of eight of the studies with marked gastric reflux. A study of discharge records showed that a total of ten of the patients in this series had pancreatitis. Since only five showed prominent gastric reflux, the incidence was 50%. Other disorders accounted for the three remaining gastric reflux cases observed in 90 patients.