Evaluation of gastric emptying in diabetic gastropathy by an ultrasonic whole stomach cylinder method.

In order to explore the accuracy of ultrasonic whole stomach cylinder measurement (UWSCM) in the evaluation of gastric emptying, we measured the gastric emptying times (ET) at 25% (T1), 50% (T2) and 75% (T3) of healthy subjects and patients with diabetic gastropathy by UWSCM and scintigraphy. The ET of patients were compared with their clinical symptom scores. We found that the ET measured by UWSCM showed no significant difference with scintigraphy (p > 0.05). The correlation between them was good, and the correlation coefficient of T3 reached 0.744 (p < 0.05). All emptying times in the diabetic patients were longer than those in the healthy subjects (p < 0.05). The T3 in the diabetic group measured by UWSCM had the best correlation with the symptom index (r = 0.469, p < 0.05). We conclude that ET measured by UWSCM is accurate and T3 combining the symptoms index provides an accurate clinical basis for gastropathy.