Undisturbed water gastric emptying in patients of stomach cancer.
OBJECTIVE
Gastric cancer is an infiltrative disease involving deep layers of the stomach. It is of interest whether the stomach motility in gastric cancer patients may be altered. We employed a homemade applied potential tomographic system to study the features of water gastric emptying in gastric cancer patients.


METHODS
Twelve electrodes were placed in a circular array around the upper abdomen of studied subjects. After drinking 500 mL of test water, paired electrodes injected an electrical current and another 9 paired electrodes recorded signals. This procedure was processed in a rotated order for 50 min while the serial changes in altered resistivity were constructed to display water gastric emptying curve. Before surgery, 27 histologically confirmed gastric cancer patients were enrolled to measure their gastric emptying parameters including half emptying time (T1/2) and area under the curve (AUC). Consequently, tumor parameters were obtained from their resected specimens. In addition, 28 healthy controls were recruited to compare water gastric emptying.


RESULTS
The half emptying times of gastric cancer patients and controls were 15.51 +/- 2.21 (SE) and 16.82 +/- 2.13 min, respectively (NS). While their measured areas under the curve were also comparable (1719.5 +/- 169.4 vs. 1896.0 +/- 143.6 arbitrary unit, NS). Regarding with various patient factors to influence water gastric emptying among gastric cancer patients, those patients presenting nausea (T1/2: 8.3 +/- 1.44 vs. 18.5 +/- 2.8 min, P<0.05) or free of regional lymph node metastasis (9.98 +/- 2.53 vs. 22.7 +/- 3.84 min, P<0.05) had a rapid water gastric emptying. Other demographic and tumor characteristics including gender, age, smoking, body size, serum levels of tumor markers, cancer location/size, invasion layer, Helicobacter pylori colonization and histological subtype did not influence water gastric emptying.


CONCLUSIONS
Water gastric emptying in non-obstructive gastric cancer patients is mainly undisturbed. However, some obvious dyspeptic symptom or tumor nature appears leading to a rapid water gastric emptying.
Chang
Full-Young
FY
Division of Gastroenterology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, School of Medicine National Yang Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China. changfy@vghtpe.gov.tw
Chen
Chih-Yen
CY
Lu
Ching-Liang
CL
Luo
Jiing-Chyuan
JC
Jiun
Kang Lih
KL
Lee
Shou-Dong
SD
Wu
Chew-Wun
CW
D000368:Aged; D019540:Area Under Curve; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D004594:Electrophysiology; D005260:Female; D005746:Gastric Emptying; D005766:Gastrointestinal Contents; D006801:Humans; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009325:Nausea / Q000209:etiology; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014867:Water
D014867:Water