A magnetic resonance imaging study of gastric motor function in patients with dyspepsia associated with Ehlers‐Danlos Syndrome‐Hypermobility Type: A feasibility study

Abstract

This study demonstrates the feasibility of a water challenge MRI protocol to evaluate gastric physiology in the clinical setting. Motility differences between EDS-HT and controls are worthy of further investigation.

Detecting the effects of a standardized meal challenge on small bowel motility with MRI in prepared and unprepared bowel

“…In as little time as 10 minutes we measured significant response which concurred with the findings by Khalaf et al who performed a similar MRI experiment over 270 minutes and found a maximum motility response immediately after ingestion of a test meal . Patients with gastrointestinal motility and functional bowel disorders frequently experience symptoms after ingestion of food and a food provocation test might enable us to explore this reaction further in a range of conditions and diseases . In the case of treatment, response testing could be useful as monitoring tool or inclusion/exclusion criteria to improve the homogeneity of the cohort of interest.…”

Evaluation of gastrointestinal motility with MRI: Advances, challenges and opportunities

“…In their paper Khalaf and co‐workers set normal limits for gallbladder and gastric volumes, small bowel motility and water content, whole gut transit, GI peptides and symptom data when using this test meal. Others have described an under 60 minutes MRI protocol to examine gastric motility, accommodation and emptying together with the duodenal response following a simple water stimulus . We have used a practical 30‐minutes stimulation test for small bowel motility assessment, demonstrating a significant response to a caloric challenge in fasted healthy subjects within a time frame of less than 10 minutes …”

“…A study in Ehlers‐Danlos syndrome‐Hypermobility type patients and controls showed that the increase in gastric motility following a water challenge was significantly lower in Ehlers‐Danlos syndrome‐Hypermobility type patients with functional dyspepsia compared to controls …”

“…The short observation periods associated with breath-hold protocols may seem inadequate to measure GI motility, but have shown good initial results 4,10,16,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26] and are very practical for clinical use. Recent work showed that in breath-hold scanning, using a displacement mapping quantification technique (described below), a temporal resolution of at least 1 image per second and duration of 15 seconds is required for robust assessment of motility.…”

“…Only recently quantification techniques for motility assessment have matured to a level that allows for clinical evaluation.Dynamic MRI is used in the stomach to measure frequency and amplitude of antral contractions. [3][4][5] It is used for the small bowel to look at segmental and global motility using frequency measures and surrogate measures. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12] In the colon it has been applied to assess motion and velocity of contents, wall motion and to study motility using surrogate measures.…”