Assessment of small bowel motility in patients with chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction using cine-MRI.

Chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction (CIPO) is a rare, serious motility disorder, with life-threatening complications over time. However, lack of an established, non-invasive diagnostic method has caused delays in the diagnosis of this intractable disease. Cine-magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an emerging technique, with a potential to evaluate the motility of the entire bowel. We compared small bowel motility in healthy volunteers, patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and those with CIPO, using cine-MRI, and evaluated the usefulness of cine-MRI as a novel diagnostic method for CIPO. Twelve healthy volunteers, IBS patients, and CIPO patients prospectively underwent cine-MRI at 1.5 T. Luminal diameter, contraction ratio, and contraction cycle were measured and compared between the groups. Cine-MRI provided sufficient dynamic images to assess the motility of the entire small bowel. Luminal diameter (mean±s.d.) in CIPO patients was significantly higher than that in healthy volunteers and IBS patients (43.4±14.1, 11.1±1.5, and 10.9±1.9 mm, respectively), and contraction ratio was significantly lower in CIPO patients than that in healthy volunteers and IBS patients (17.1±11.0%, 73.0±9.3%, and 74.6±9.4%, respectively). No significant differences were observed in the contraction cycle. This study is the first to assess the clinical utility of cine-MRI in CIPO patients. Cine-MRI clearly detected contractility impairments in CIPO patients. Cine-MRI is noninvasive, radiation-free, and can directly evaluate the entire small bowel peristalsis, and can detect the affected loops at a glance; therefore, it might be extremely useful for the diagnosis and follow-up of CIPO patients in clinical practice.

Citation

Hidenori Ohkubo, Takaomi Kessoku, Akiko Fuyuki, Hiroshi Iida, Masahiko Inamori, Tetsuro Fujii, Harunobu Kawamura, Yasuo Hata, Noriaki Manabe, Toshimi Chiba, Thomas C Kwee, Ken Haruma, Nobuyuki Matsuhashi, Atsushi Nakajima, Taro Takahara. Assessment of small bowel motility in patients with chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction using cine-MRI. The American journal of gastroenterology. 2013 Jul;108(7):1130-9

Mesh Tags

PMID: 23511458

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