Evidence for a midgastric transverse band in humans.

When the solid fraction of a standardized meal is labeled with technetium 99m-sulfur colloid-labeled chicken liver and fed to human subjects, linear regions of decreased radioactivity that have the appearance of a band are identified on the scintillation camera images of the stomach. The band is not a peristaltic contraction because it persists in individual subjects after 4 h of imaging. The band has also been identified in the dog, pig, and monkey. It is transverse and midgastric in location. William Beaumont noted a similar band in his observations on Alexis St. Martin in 1833, and a transverse band was noted in autopsy specimens of food-filled human stomachs in 1919. However, the finding has been ignored in current gastrointestinal or radiologic textbooks because the band cannot be identified with conventional barium sulfate meals. The anatomic basis for the band and its role in regulating gastric emptying remain unclear.