Title : How epigastric impedance would radically change gastric medicine
Abstract:
Epigastric impedance monitors measure liquid gastric emptying and motility non-invasively. Validated by several PhDs and 25 published papers it detected gastric delay whenever expected, plus the stimulant effect of prokinetics and reduced motility after opiates. Practical, due to being simple to make and use which also makes it inexpensive, it can measure early stages of gastric malfunction in diabetic autonomic neuropathy while the stomach can still respond to prokinetics. In primary care dyspepsia it would detect patients who have gastric delay to direct therapy to prokinetic treatment and so avoid use of ineffective antacids and wasted consultations. It would help a clinic select the most effective compound and dose. Gastric emptying rates are consistent due to using liquid test meals, which confers two main advantages: Outliers are more evident and variance within group data is small, which greatly reduces the size of groups needed to detect significant differences. For example, in one trial a difference in mean t50%s between two groups of 8 subjects was only 1.4 minutes yet it was statistically significant. This would facilitate the adoption of new prokinetics by regulatory authorities, so offering carers and patients greater choice.
