The
Electrogastrogram
can detect stomach
disorders
that an Endoscopy can't find!
What
Happens When You Have Nausea, Your Stomach Always Feels Full, And
Your Doctor Can't Find A Cause; Even After An Endoscopy?
The term for these symptoms is Dyspepsia
and can also include bloating and early satiety.
This a common situation throughout the world.
According to The National Institute of Health, 26% of the population
in the US suffer from these symptoms, and 30% of patients with GERD
also have symptoms of Dyspepsia. The NIH also states that prevalence
of non-ulcer dyspepsia in the Japanese population is growing. The
British Society of Gastroenterology estimates that 40% of the
patients in Great Britain suffer these symptoms. There are similar
percentages found in studies for Canada, China and India.
What An Endoscopy Can't See
The French Institute CAT has noted that 46% of the
patients that present with these symptoms also suffer from GERD.
This means that the first line of diagnosis should be an Upper
Endoscopy. But because these conditions prevail, even when the
endoscopy results are inconclusive, patients often move on to other
physicians and are put through more tests at ever increasing costs.
But the result is often a continued lack of diagnosis and relief.
So What Is Being Missed?
The one thing that is not being tested in all this
is a way to look at how your digestive system functions as a whole.
None of these tests or exams look at how your body triggers
digestion in the first place. The cause may be a Gastric
Neuromuscular Disorder (Motility Disorder). This is a problem with
how the nervous system triggers the muscles of your digestive system
to do their job. A holistic approach to any problem should always
consider this as part of how your digestive system works and should
be considered as a potential cause for these symptoms.
Gastric neuromuscular disorders range from gastric
dysrhythmias and abnormalities of gastric accommodation to
gastroparesis.
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EGG TECHNOLOGY ADVANCEMENT
Electrogastrography describes the recording and
interpretation of electrical activity of the stomach. Over
the past 10 years, EGG has achieved recognition as a unique
and reproducible method of diagnosing and subsequently
treating gastric dysrhythmias (specific motility and
neuromuscular disorders of the stomach.) Research has
documented that abnormal gastric contraction and the
stomach’s myoelectrical patterns have been linked to
specific disease states such as
-
Functional dyspepsia
-
Nausea
-
Gastroparesis (Liberski, Koch 1990)
-
Nausea related to post-operative concerns, or pregnancy
-
Motion sickness
-
Gastric reflux with dyspepsia symptoms
-
Chronic mesenteric ischemia
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Additionally, in a position paper on nausea and
vomiting, developed by the American Gastroenterological
Association, the EGG was indicated as a safe and cost
effective test of gastric dysmotility in the patient with
unexplained nausea.1
By adding water challenge to the stomach a provocative test
of the gastric myoelectric activity is created. The EGG
signals can be compared to a control group of “normal
healthy subjects”. The human response to water load has a
predictable pattern in healthy individuals.
(Koch KL, Hong S-P, Xu L: Reproducibility of gastric
myoelectric activity and the water load test in patients
with dysmotility-like dyspepsia symptoms and in control
subjects. J Cin Gastroenterology 2000; 31:125-129).
Additional diagnostic benefits for using
water load as the gastric
challenge are that water evokes pure stomach neuromuscular
activity without the influence of smell (olfactory), visual
or gustatory cues of a caloric meal. Plus, a water load
instead of food avoids the confounding effects of colonic
neuromuscular activity, while still provoking symptoms such
as bloating and nausea.
(Lin HC, Hasler WL: Disorders of gastric
emptying. In: Yamada T, ed. Textbook of Gastroenterology.
Philadelphia: JB Lippincott; 1995:1318-1346).
1
American
Gastroenterological Association Medical Position Statement:
Nausea and Vomiting. Gastroenterology 2001;120:261-286.
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