Gastrointestinal motility of patients with Roux-en-Y reconstruction.

The electromyographic activity of the gastrointestinal tract was studied in 28 patients undergoing gastric, biliary, and pancreatic operations with reconstruction of the gastrointestinal tract with a Roux-en-Y limb. The Roux-en-Y limb was constructed 1 to 5 years before the study in 8 patients (chronic Roux-en-Y) and at the operation in which the electrodes were implanted in 20 patients (recent Roux-en-Y). All four phases of the migrating motor complex (MMC) were identified in the gastrointestinal tract, including in the Roux-en-Y limb. The duration of the MMC was 82.4 +/- 22.3 min in the patients with chronic Roux-en-Y and 89.0 +/- 25.1 min in the patients with recent Roux-en-Y. Food ingestion converted the MMC to the fed pattern in the entire gastrointestinal tract, including the Roux-en-Y limb in 16 (76.2%) of 21 recordings of the patients with chronic Roux-en-Y and in 27 (84.4%) of 32 recordings of the patients with recent Roux-en-Y. The duration of the fed pattern was 170 +/- 34 min in the patients with chronic Roux-en-Y and 154 +/- 26 min in the patients with recent Roux-en-Y. The findings of this study indicate that the electromyographic activity of the Roux-en-Y limb is normal during both fasting and fed states, even many years after the construction of the Roux-en-Y.