The use of Fourier transform and spectral analysis in the detection of distension-induced gastric arrhythmias in dyspeptic patients

Abstract

The electrogastrograms of a cohort of normal controls and a group of functional and postvagotomy dyspeptic patients, recorded under conditions of varying gastric distension applied via a gastric barostat, have been captured and stored on a portable PC. Retrospective quantitative and qualitative analysis of the waveforms have been carried out in the frequency domain. Gastric distension induced a reduction in gastric baseline frequency levels, which recovered after removal of the bolus. Controlled distension at a moderate level (240-480 ml) caused more symptoms in patients than in controls, but did not seem to affect the electrogastrograms However, under conditions of high gastric distension (>480 ml), there was a significant difference between the controls and patients predominant electrogastrographic frequencies (meandifference=0.013 Hz; 95%Cl=0.001 Hz to 0.025 Hz to 0.025 Hz; p=0.014). The authors conclude that functional and postvagotomy dyspeptic patients have greater gastric electrical instability than controls, which seems to be more apparent under conditions of high gastric distension.