24-hour ambulatory electrogastrography in healthy volunteers.
BACKGROUND
Development of electrogastrography, the recording of gastric electric rhythm from cutaneous electrodes, for clinical purposes has been hampered by methodologic problems and the lack of an ambulatory technique. We have evaluated a newly developed system for ambulatory electrogastrography.


METHODS
24-Hour recordings were obtained from 30 healthy volunteers. We used digital filtering, a Hamming window, and spectral analysis to determine the dominant frequency of successive 256-sec segments of data.


RESULTS
Low-frequency noise disturbed the primary signal. After secondary filtering a stable normogastric (2-4 cpm) rhythm was present during a median of 49% (range, 34-79%) of the recording time. The mean frequency of gastric electric activity varied from 2.92 +/- 0.15 cpm (mean +/- SD) at mid-day to 2.72 +/- 0.13 cpm in the late night.


CONCLUSIONS
Ambulatory recording of electrogastrography needs technical improvement. The electrogastrogram shows a circadian variation in frequency.
Lindberg
G
G
Karolinska Institutet, Dept. of Medicine, Huddinge University Hospital, Sweden.
Iwarzon
M
M
Hammarlund
B
B
D000328:Adult; D002940:Circadian Rhythm; D004435:Eating / Q000502:physiology; D004594:Electrophysiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018670:Monitoring, Ambulatory / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D013270:Stomach / Q000502:physiology*