Electrogastrography in the management of pediatric functional dyspepsia and motility disorder.
OBJECTIVE
Electrogastrography (EGG) is a noninvasive investigation for recording gastric myoelectrical activity. We hypothesize that children with functional dyspepsia (FD) and gastrointestinal (GI) motility disorder have abnormal gastric myoelectrical activity. We aim to study the dyspepsia symptom scores and EGG of these children and compare them with those of the normal population.


METHODS
Seventeen children aged 6 to 18 years with persistent dyspepsia symptoms but with normal investigations were recruited as the FD group. Nine children with same age as the FD group with known upper GI motility disorder were recruited as the GI group. Eight normal healthy children were recruited as controls (CL). Dyspepsia symptom score (0-18) was charted, and all had EGG performed. Gastric slow wave frequency of 2 to 4 cycles per minute is defined as normogastria. Electrogastrography is regarded as abnormal when normogastria occurs in less than 70% of recorded time. Wilcoxon rank sum test and Fisher's Exact test were performed with statistical significance at P value equal to .05.


RESULTS
Mean dyspepsia symptom score was significantly different in comparing FD and GI with CL groups (FD, 6.71; GI, 5.54; CL, 0.25; P < .001). Abnormal EGG patterns occur more often in FD than in CL (FD, 58.9%; CL, 12.5%; P = .042). Abnormal EGG patterns were found in 55.6% of GI and 12.5% of CL (P = .131).


CONCLUSIONS
Electrogastrography is a useful and noninvasive armamentarium for evaluating the abnormal myoelectrical activity in children with FD and GI motility disorder.
Leung
Michael W Y
MW
Division of Paediatric Surgery, Department of Surgery, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kowloon, Hong Kong. leungwym@hotmail.com
Wong
Beatrice P Y
BP
Chao
Nicholas S Y
NS
Chung
Kwong-Wai
KW
Kwok
Wing-Kin
WK
Liu
Kelvin K W
KK
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D004415:Dyspepsia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D004568:Electrodiagnosis / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016065:Myoelectric Complex, Migrating / Q000502:physiology; D013272:Stomach Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology