Gastric emptying in infants: Epigastric impedance versus scintigraphy

Aim: To compare epigastric impedance versus scintigraphy in monitoring the gastric emptying of the same adapted milk formula in infants. Methods: Seven infants with clinical symptoms of gastric motility disease underwent scintigraphy with 99mTc sulphur colloid for the 90 min following the ingestion of the same adapted milk formula, in order to evaluate gastric emptying. A bio-impedance device, connected to a PC, was prepared for this purpose with four standard electrodes placed anteriorly on the upper part of the body. The obtained graphs were compared to those of the scintigraphic method. Statistical analysis was performed using Pearson correlation. The confidence limits were set at 95%. Parental consent was obtained before each analysis. Results: The gastric emptying patterns obtained with epigastric impedance were closely correlated to those shown by the scintigraphy (r= 0.86 ± 0.08; p < 0.05). A significant correlation between the gastric emptying velocity measured by the two techniques was found (r= 0.94; p= 0.002). Conclusions: Epigastric impedance in infants provided estimates of gastric emptying that were closely correlated with scintigraphy. However, the limits derived from the epigastric impedance suggest that, at the moment, the two methods should not be used interchangeably.