Correlation between solid gastric emptying and endoscopy after silastic ring vertical gastroplasty

Bariatric surgeries have been used in the treatment of obese patients. Silastic ring vertical gastroplasty (SRVG) consists of creating a gastric pouch which will lead to changes in the mechanism of digestion and to weight loss Aim: To determine the solid gastric emptying T1/2 in patients who underwent SRVG, and to correlate these findings with endoscopy, body mass index (BMI) and percent loss of excess body weight (PLEBW). Materials and Methods: Thirty six obese patients (30 women and 6 men, mean age 40.3 years) were submitted to SRVG. Endoscopy was performed 6 to 12 months after SRVG to classify the ring introduced into the neo stomach as tight, medium and large. Twelve to 18 months after SRVG the patients were submitted to scintigraphy and evaluation of BMI and PLEBW. Gastric emptying was performed with a solid meal which consisted of a cooked egg labeled with 99mTc-microcolloid. Patients were placed in the upright position and acquisition was begun after ingestion of the radioactive meal. The gastric emptying T1/2 was calculated. Results: The T1/2 was 53.44 ± 40.26 minutes for patients with a tight ring (47.2% of the patient population); 68.03 ± 43.06 minutes for patients with a medium ring (22.2% of the patient population); and 23.06 ± 25.15 minutes for patients with a large ring (30.6% of the patient population). There was a significant correlation between T1/2 and endoscopic findings (p = 0.0482; ANOVA). Within 18 months after SRVG, patients showed BMI = 32.48 ± 7.51 and PLEBW = 77.41 ± 21.22 %. Statistical analyses showed that there was a tendency towards a direct correlation between T1/2 and PLEBW (r = 0.46; p 0.0045) and a tendency towards an inverse correlation with the BMI (r -0.48; p=0.0028). Conclusions: Despite the significant correlation between T1/2 and the endoscopic, BMI and PLEBW findings, this method was unable to differentiate the ring sizes, probably because endoscopy was performed at least 6 months prior to the gastric emptying study and ring measurement may be observer dependant