The Usefulness of the Transabdominal Ultrasonography as a Screening Examination in the Evaluation of the Patient with Suspicious Gastric Disease

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To evaluate the usefulness of transabdominal ultrasonography as a screening examination in patients with suspicious gastric disease. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We selected 141 patients with epigastric pain and who were found to have antral gastric wall thickening of more than 5 mm in transabdominal ultrasonography, and who underwent gastroscopy immediately following the ultrasonography examination, because we suspected that these patients had gastric disease. We measured the full thickness of the five layers of the gastric wall and evaluated the preservation of this fivelayered structure. We respectively compared the gastric wall thickness and the preservation of gastric layers in 26 normal, 91 gastritis, 12 gastric ulcer, and 12 gastric cancer patients, who were classified based on the gastroscopy results. RESULTS: The mean thicknesses of the gastric wall in the normal, gastritis, gastric ulcer and gastric cancer patients were 5.13+/-0.14 mm, 6.71+/-1.33 mm, 8.08+/-2.80 mm, and 12.45+/-3.70 mm, respectively. The gastric walls in the gastritis, gastric ulcer and gastric cancer patients were significantly thicker than that in the normal patients (p 0.01). Except for two patients with gastritis and three patients with gastric ulcer, the stratification of the gastric wall was preserved in all of the normal, gastritis and gastric ulcer patients, whereas it was disrupted in all of the patients with gastric cancer. CONCLUSION: Transabdominal ultrasonography in the fasting state may be a helpful and convenient modality, which can serve as a screening examination in the evaluation of gastric disease. Therefore, careful attention and effort are needed to evaluate the gastric wall during transabdominal ultrasonography.