Scintigraphy vs. mechanical magnetogastrography: gastric emptying analysis.

Scintigraphy technique is considered the gold standard for gastric emptying evaluations. Lately mechanical magnetogastrography (MMG) technique has emerged as an alternative for these assessments. This study presents the determination of reference values for MMG in order to validate this novel technique in gastric emptying measurements. Both methodologies were used in young and healthy subjects provided with a solid test meal. The measurements were performed with 2 days of difference. Bland-Altman analysis of the data was performed to conclude about the feasibility of MMG as a good alternative test for gastric emptying assessments. Using MMG, an average of the gastric emptying half-time of 57.6 +/- 25.8 min was obtained, whereas the same parameter obtained by scintigraphy was 52.2 +/- 12.9 min. In conclusion, the use of MMG technique is in concordance with the results using the gold standard technique for gastric emptying measurements.

Magnetogastrography (MGG) reproducibility assessments of gastric emptying on healthy subjects.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the half-time gastric emptying reproducibility measured by magnetogastrography (MGG). Seven healthy subjects were subjected to a magnetic pulse of 32 mT for 17 ms, seven times in 90 min. The procedure was repeated one and two weeks later. Assessments of the gastric emptying were carried out for each one of the measurements and statistical analyses of ANOVA and Bland-Altman were performed for every group of data. A mean of 21.7 +/- 3.3 min was measured for the half-time of gastric emptying for yoghurt. Reproducibility estimation was above 85%. Therefore, magnetogastrography seems to be a reliable technique to be implemented in routine clinical trials.