title: Assessment of the practical role of a radionuclide low-fat-meal solid gastric emptying study.
abstract: The aim of this study was to assess the practical role of a low-fat-meal gastric emptying protocol and its effect on a patient's compliance and comfort, number of patient referrals, daily nuclear medicine scheduling, patient throughput, and cost-effectiveness.
  
  
  METHODS
  We retrospectively reviewed the charts of patients who underwent low-fat-meal gastric emptying studies between February 2003 and February 2004. The study was approved by the University of Texas Medical Branch institutional review board.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 117 studies were identified. There were 36 males and 81 females. A total of 36 patients had prolonged gastric emptying (30.8%), and 5 patients had rapid emptying (4.3%). The test meal was well tolerated by 112 of 117 patients (95.8%); 5 patients were unable to complete the meal (4.3%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We found that patient tolerance, compliance, and comfort with the low-fat-meal gastric emptying protocol were excellent, increasing the number of patient referrals. In addition, the low-fat-meal protocol can accommodate more patients and hence can be beneficial for busy nuclear medicine sections with a necessity for high patient volumes; the protocol also is cost-effective.
authors.affiliation: Nuclear Medicine Section, Department of Radiology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas 77555, USA. vavijaya@utmb.edu
authors.forename: Vani
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Vijayakumar
authors.forename: Elma G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Briscoe
authors.forename: Theresa L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Boysen
authors.forename: Yvette M
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Jimenez
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D018752:Diet, Fat-Restricted; D005260:Female; D005746:Gastric Emptying / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011868:Radioisotopes / Q000378:metabolism; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013270:Stomach / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*
chemical_list: D011868:Radioisotopes