Gastric emptying: a comparison of three methods

A better understanding of the clinical relevance of delayed gastric emptying (e.g. in diabetes) requires a simple, easily accessible and inexpensive method for measuring it. Two "new" methods for measuring gastric emptying of liquids (the paracetamol absorption test and the 13C-acetate breath test) are compared with the gold standard (gastric emptying scintigraphy (GES)). The three techniques were used simultaneously in 10 healthy subjects. A gastric emptying time-retention curve was drawn for each technique and the results were compared at the 75%, 50% and 25% retention quartiles. Agreement was found between the paracetamol absorption test and GES (p=0.95; Hotelling's T 2 test). Using the Wagner-Nelson one compartment correction produced a retention curve for the 13C-acetate breath test statistically significantly below GES (p<0.01). In healthy subjects, the paracetamol absorption test produced results comparable to those of liquid GES, but not to the results of the 13C-acetate breath test.