AJP - Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, Vol 247, Issue 5 574-G581, Copyright © 1984 by American Physiological Society
Three-dimensional dynamic x-ray-computed tomography imaging of stomach motility
K. Seide and E. L. Ritman
The dynamic spatial reconstructor (DSR), an x-ray-computed,
tomography-based imaging machine, scans a cylindrical volume up to 39 cm in
transaxial diameter and 21.5 cm in axial height with scan repetition rate
up to 60 per second. We applied this technique to three dogs in order to
investigate the accuracy with which stomach shape, dimensions, and motility
can be measured. Single peristaltic waves of one dog's stomach filled with
air and two other dogs' stomachs filled with different volumes of
contrast-enhanced semisolid meals (10% Gastrografin) were scanned at 2-s
intervals at scan apertures between 0.011- and 1-s duration. On completion
of the scan sequence, images of oblique sections perpendicular to the local
long axis of the stomach fundus, corpus, and antrum were computed from the
DSR scan data. Measurements of differential motion of defined points on the
stomach wall surface, propagation velocities, acceleration, and amplitudes
of peristalsis as well as gastric volume determinations were made. This
approach overcomes problems of superposition and ambiguity inherent in
projection imaging. Measurements of the volumes of ingested first meal were
accurate to within 1.5% (of the actual volume of solid food introduced into
the stomach) using a 0.40-s scan aperture. Wall motion could be detected
with an SEE of 1.5 mm (pixel size used was 1.4 mm) using a 0.40-s scan
aperture.
