[Simultaneous long-term measurement of duodenogastric reflux and gastroduodenal motility]

We combined a newly developed ambulatory fiberoptic system for detecting intragastric bilirubin (Bilitec 2000, Synectics Medical Inc., Sweden) with prolonged measurement of gastroduodenal motility in 10 healthy volunteers and 10 patients followed BI resection. Circadian intragastric bilirubin exposure and the total number of tremendous changes of bilirubin absorption (more than 20%, over a period of at least 5 min) were significantly increased in the BI-resected patients (P < 0.05). In patients the interdigestive motility cycle (IMC) was characterized by the appearance of several types of abnormally propagated phase III activity fronts. Of the tremendous increases of bilirubin absorption in the patient group, 90.1% were associated with abnormally propagated phase III activity fronts. In cases of increased duodenogastric reflux, the combination of ambulatory intragastric bilirubin measurement and long-term manometry seems to be feasible to assess motility and reflux simultaneously.