No Association of Individual Symptoms with Delayed Gastric Emptying in Functional Dyspepsia

Kim, Young Ho; Choi, Kyoo Wan; Paik, Seung Woon; Rhee, Jong Chul; Kim, Jae Jun; Koh, Kwang Cheol; Son, Hee Jung; Rhee, Poong Lyul; Sung, In Kyung

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Delayed gastric emptying has been postulated to be a pathophysiologic factor to explain the symptoms of functional dyspepsia (FD). To elucidate the value of the individual dyspeptic symptoms for predicting the presence of delayed gastric emptying, we evaluated the symptoms and gastric emptying rates of patients with functional dyspepsia.
METHODS
For 64 patients with FD, solid-phase gastric emptying was measured by scintigraphy and individual symptoms, including sense of early satiety, postprandial fullness, sense of delayed emptying, nausea, vomiting and soreness, were evaluated. Moreover, gastric emptying of the solid-phase was measured in 10 healthy adults without gastrointestinal symptoms.
RESULTS
Half emptying time of patients with FD seemed to be longer than that of controls, but there was no statistically significant difference between two groups (100.1+/-31.0 min. vs 87.3+/-9.7 min). Using the 95% confidence intervals of the control group for the half emptying time of solid-phase, 23 out of 64 patients (35.9%) had delayed half emptying time. But there was no relationship between the presence or severity of the individual symptoms and half emptying time of the solid-phase.
CONCLUSIONS
The evaluation of the individual symptoms was of no value in predicting the presence of delayed gastric emptying.