Master of Public Health

Multichannel magnetogastrogram - A clinical marker for pediatric chronic nausea

AUTHORS

ABSTRACT

Chronic nausea is a widespread functional disease in children with numerous comorbidities. High resolution electrogastrogram (HR-EGG) has shown sufficient sensitivity as a non-invasive clinical marker to objectively detect distinct gastric slow wave properties in children with functional nausea. We hypothesized that the increased precision of magnetogastrogram (MGG) slow wave recordings could provide supplementary information not evident on HR-EGG. We evaluated simultaneous pre- and postprandial MGG and HR-EGG recordings in pediatric chronic nausea patients and healthy asymptomatic subjects, while also measuring nausea intensity and nausea severity. We found significant reductions in postprandial dominant frequency and normogastric power, and higher levels of postprandial bradygastric power in nausea patients in both MGG and HR-EGG. MGG also detected significantly lower preprandial normogastric power in patients. A significant difference in the mean preprandial gastric slow wave propagation direction was observed in patients as compared to controls in both MGG (control: 180°±61°, patient: 34°±72°; p ˂ 0.05) and HR-EGG (control: 240°±39°, patient: 180°±46°; p ˂ 0.05). Patients also showed a significant change in the mean slow wave direction between pre- and postprandial periods in MGG (p ˂ 0.05). No statistical differences were observed in propagation speed between healthy subjects and patients in either MGG or HR-EGG pre/postprandial periods. The use of MGG and/or HR-EGG represents an opportunity to assess noninvasively the effects of chronic nausea on gastric slow wave activity. MGG data may offer the opportunity for further refinement of the more portable and economical HR-EGG in future machine-learning modeling of functional nausea.

Tags: alumni publications 2022