Increasing the Sensitivity of Gastric Emptying Scintigraphy

2706 Objectives The purpose of our research is to determine if patient outcomes can be improved by adjusting the procedure for gastric emptying scintigraphy at our clinical site. The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging procedure standard for gastric emptying indicates that imaging to four hours is more sensitive than the two-hour dynamic protocol currently in use at our facility. Utilizing patients as their own standard, we will compare the two protocols by adding two additional images (at three and four hours post ingestion) to the current protocol with consenting patients. Methods Patients who are scheduled for gastric emptying evaluation will be invited to participate in this IRB-approved research. Following informed consent, gastric emptying evaluation will be conducted according to the currently approved department protocol with regard to patient preparation, meal preparation, and image acquisition. Following the two-hour dynamic acquisition, two additional 60-second static images will be obtained, one each at the three and four hour post ingestion time using the same camera and image matrix. Regions of interest will be drawn and a time-activity curve generated for the images according to the current protocol. Two 60-second frames at time zero, one, and two hours will be extracted from the dynamic study and used along with the additional static images to generate time-activity curves for our research protocol. The normal for a 4-hour study will be considered Results Results pending completion of the study. Conclusions After comparing the results of the two protocols on ten to fifty patients, we hypothesize that we will demonstrate that the 2 hour dynamic acquisition will be less sensitive than static images taken immediately and hourly up to four hours in determining normal gastric emptying. The protocol will be revisited and a recommendation made to adapt the more sensitive protocol.