Ultrasound of the stomach--the EUROSON lecture 2006.

The stomach is a fascinating organ. It has the capacity to expand its volume substantially to receive and accommodate food after a meal, normally without any conscious notice of the expansion. The aim of this paper is to show how transabdominal ultrasonography can disclose the structural and functional abnormalities of the stomach. Ultrasound of the stomach was initially performed to detect and investigate organic diseases of the gastric wall. Subsequently, different methods were developed to study functional aspects of gastric pathology. Ultrasound can be used to evaluate antral contractility, gastric emptying, transpyloric flow, gastric configuration, intragastric distribution of meals, gastric accommodation and strain measurement of the gastric wall. Advanced methods for 3D ultrasound imaging and tissue Doppler (Strain Rate Imaging) have also been developed to study diseases of the stomach. The Ultrasound Meal Accommodation Test (U-MAT) can be applied to characterise patients with organic and non-organic dyspepsia. Ultrasonography still has a great potential as a clinical method, and some day our patients may receive both diagnosis and treatment in the same session.