title: Assessment of the Prevalence of Diabetic Gastroparesis and Validation of Gastric Emptying Scintigraphy for Diagnosis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Gastroparesis is defined as delayed gastric emptying and is a common medical condition in diabetic patients. Scintigraphy is commonly used as a standard diagnostic procedure for the quantitative assessment of gastroparesis. The aims of this study were to determine an optimum imaging time for the diagnosis of gastroparesis, to assess the prevalence of gastroparesis, to evaluate the correlation between endoscopy and scintigraphy findings as well as the correlation between gastric emptying with patient genders, blood glucose concentration, and functional dyspepsia.
  
  
  METHODS
  Gastric emptying was assessed in 50 diabetic patients with a mean age of 50.16 years. For evaluation of gastric emptying, a test meal containing 2 pieces of toast, 120 cc non-labeled water and fried egg labeled with 1 mCi of99mTc was given to each patient. The scintigraphy was performed immediately after ingestion and was repeated at 1, 1.5, 2 and 4 hours after ingestion. In some patients, an additional 90-minute dynamic scan was also acquired.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The prevalence of gastroparesis in this study population was determined as 64%. Also, the results of this study revealed that a 4-hour scan after ingestion is more relevant than a 90-minute dynamic scan for the evaluation of delayed gastric emptying. There was no statistically significant difference between 1-hour and 2-hour scans, 1-hour and 90-minute scans, 2-hour and 90-minute scans, 2-hour and 4-hour scans. Likewise there was no significant correlation between blood glucose levels, gender and calculated values of gastric emptying time in all groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  According to our findings, it can be suggested that the prevalence of gastroparesis is higher than that mentioned in some previous studies. Also, this study indicates that a gastric emptying scintigraphy at 2 and 4 hours after meal ingestion might provide the anticipated clinical information in diabetic patients with dyspepsia without other evident reasons.
authors.forename: Zeinab
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Alipour
authors.forename: Foad
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Khatib
authors.forename: Seyed Masoud
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Tabib
authors.forename: Hamid
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Javadi
authors.forename: Esmail
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Jafari
authors.forename: Leila
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Aghaghazvini
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mahmoud-Pashazadeh
authors.forename: Iraj
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Nabipour
authors.affiliation: Bushehr University of Medical Sciences, The Persian Gulf Nuclear Medicine Research Center, Bushehr, Iran Phone: +098-771-2580169 E-mail: assadipoya@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Majid
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Assadi