Reverse phasic contractions are present in antiperistaltic jejunal limbs up to twenty-one years postoperatively

One of the surgical procedures that has been performed to reduce symptoms of dumping is the antiperistaltic jejunal limb (APL). We hypothesized that the polarity of the Phase III activity fronts would be maintained after creation of an APL. To test that hypothesis, water perfused, low compliance intestinal manometry was performed upon four patients with APL, four patients with vagotomy, antrectomy and Roux-en-Y gastrojejunostomy (VARY) and four volunteers. The patients were studied for a minimum of four hours of fasting. Recordings were analyzed by visual inspection by two observers and results are expressed as mean plus or minus standard error of the mean. Statistical analysis was performed with Student's t test. Phase III activity fronts occurred more frequently (1.4 +/- 0.3 per hour) in the patients with a VARY reconstruction than in the volunteers (0.5 +/- 0.5 minute). The duration of Phase II activity was significantly less in the patients with the VARY reconstruction (19.1 +/- 5.1 minutes) than in the volunteers (49.5 +/- 5.2 minutes). Patients with reversed activity fronts showed statistically significant propagation velocity (3.0 +/- 0.6 versus 9.6 +/- 2.0 centimeters per minute) (p < 0.005), but longer Phase III activity fronts (8.0 +/- 0.8 versus 4.9 +/- 0.3 minutes) (p < 0.001) than in the volunteers. Although there were a number of abnormalities identified in the patients with VARY reconstruction, there were no reverse Phase III activity fronts seen in the four patients with APL reconstruction. The polarity of the small intestine is maintained up to 21 years after construction of an antiperistaltic jejunal segment.