Non-invasive measurement of gastric accommodation in humans

Abstract

Gastric accommodation describes the reduction in gastric tone and increase in compliance that follows ingestion of a meal and involves at least two responses: "receptive relaxation" which allows the stomach to accept a volume load without a significant rise in gastric pressure and "adaptive relaxation" which modulates gastric tone in response to the specific properties of the meal ingested. However, there are considerable technical difficulties in measuring the accommodation process. The current standard barostat studies, and other methods such as conventional and three dimensional ultrasound, or single photon emission computed tomography have significant disadvantages. Preliminary findings from the development and validation of a new magnetic resonance imaging technique that addresses many of the deficiencies of previous methods are presented.

Figure 1

Transaxial magnetic resonance image 15 minutes following intragastric infusion of 500 ml of Ensure. The total stomach volume is outlined. Meal volume is seen as a white and air as a black area.

Figure 2

Normalised volume plots of total gastric volumes and meal volumes after intragastric infusion of 500 ml of 10% Intralipid (550 kcal) (A), 20% glucose (400 kcal) (B), and Ensure (protein 17%, fat 30%, carbohydrate 53%; 375 kcal) (C).