Reproducibility of cutaneous electrogastrography in the fasting state in man
Riezzo, G.; Pezzolla, F.; Thouvenot, J.; Giorgio, I.
Pathologie-Biologie 40(9): 889-894
1992
ISSN/ISBN: 0369-8114 PMID: 1296162 Document Number: 393193
Cutaneous electrogastrography (EGGc), the recording of gastric electrical activity from the cutaneous abdominal surface, still presents a series of difficulties connected with the interpretation of signals. In this study, the authors evaluated the reproducibility of electrogastrographic data over a period of time by making recordings on three consecutive days in a group of healthy subjects. The recordings (lasting 1 hour) were made in the morning on fasting subjects. Three sets of bipolar cutaneous electrodes were placed on the abdomen around the pyloric radiological projection and the couple 3-6 corresponded to the antral axis. The spectral analysis of data was computed by fast Fourier transform. Their data confirmed that the 3-6 couple, corresponding to the antral axis, provides the strongest EGG signal. Each subject's mean gastric frequency and power were evaluated on the three consecutive recording days. The mean frequency was 2.83 +- 0.22, 2.89 +- 0.23, and 2.86 +- 0.16 cpm on day I, day II and day III respectively. The mean power was 54.80 +- 21.34, 46.86 +- 21.52 and 49.25 +- 19.55 mu-V-2 on day I, day II and day III respectively. The analysis of variance showed that the mean gastric frequency and power were not significantly different on the three days (p gt 0.05). This shows that the frequency of the EGGc signal remains stable in the course of time and hence that EGGc is a reliable method of studying disorders in gastric electrical rhythm. As far as spectral power was concerned, their data did not enable them to determine whether the length of the recording, the phases of Migrating Motor Complex, and the subject's age and body mass index can affect power values.