Effects of physiological factors on small intestinal transit time

Objective　To explore the influence of gender, age and body mass index (BMI) on small intestinal transit time (SITT). Methods　A total of 181 patients admitted to in the Third Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital during September 2012 to December 2018 for capsule endoscopy were selected and their age, gender, BMI and SITT were analyzed. The Mann-Whitney U test was utilized to compare the differences of SITT in patients of different genders. Spearman ρ test and multiple linear regression analysis were adopted to explore the relationship between different physiological variables age, gender, BMI and patient SITT. Results　The median SITT were 267.5 minutes for females and 252.0 minutes for males. Although the median SITT was 15.5 minutes longer in women than men, no statistical significance was found (P=0.360). There was positive correlation between age and SITT (ρ=0.22, P=0.002), and negative correlation between BMI and SITT (ρ=–0.17, P=0.02). Conclusion　The differences in drug bioavailability of modified-release preparations can not be attributed to SITT among patients of different genders, but may be related to SITT among patients of different ages and BMI. DOI: 10.11855/j.issn.0577-7402.2020.02.12