Ultrasonography for evaluation of patients with suspected gastroparesis

Abstract

Ultrasonography represents a relatively simple, non-invasive, inexpensive and readily available technique for the assessment of gastrointestinal motor function which has the capacity to assess structural and functional abnormalities. While scintigraphy remains the “gold standard” for the measurement of gastric emptying, it is associated with a radiation burden and requires expensive equipment. Two dimensional (2D) ultrasonography is now used clinically to quantify gastric emptying. Arguably of greater significance is that the use of ultrasonography has also provided fundamental insights into the pathophysiology of disordered gastric motor function – it has been used to evaluate gastric distension/accommodation, antral contractility, mechanical deformation (strain), transpyloric flow, intragastric distribution as well as gastric emptying. In this section, the role of ultrasonography in the measurement of gastric emptying, distal and proximal stomach area (accommodation), transpyloric flow and gastric motility, is discussed.