Intestinal tachyarrhythmias during small bowel ischemia

The electrical control activity (ECA) of the bowel is the omnipresent slow electrical wave of the intestinal tract. Characterization of small bowel el ectrical activity during ischemia may be used as a measure of intestinal vi ability. With the use of an animal model of mesenteric ischemia, serosal el ectrodes and a digital recording apparatus utilizing autoregressive spectra l analysis were used to monitor the ECA of 20 New Zealand White rabbits dur ing various lengths of ischemia. ECA frequency fell from 18.2 +/- 0.5 cycle s per minute (cpm) at baseline to 12.2 +/- 0.9 cpm (P < 0.05) after 30 min of ischemia and was undetectable by 90 min of ischemia in all animals. Tach yarrhythmias of the ECA were recorded in 55% of the animals as early as 25 min after ischemia was induced and lasted from 1 to 48 min. Frequencies ran ged from 25 to 50 cpm. These tachyarrhythmias were seen only during ischemi a, suggesting that they are pathognomonic for intestinal ischemia. The use of the detection of ECA changes during intestinal ischemia may allow earlie r diagnosis of mesenteric ischemia.