Standards for diagnosis of gastrointestinal motility disorders. Section: ultrasonography - A position statement from the Gruppo Italiano di Studio Motilita Apparato Digerente [GISMAD]

Ultrasonography is a non-invasive, relatively easy, validated and reproduci ble technique. We assessed the usefulness of functional ultrasonography to study disorders of gastro-oesophageal tract, gallbladder and pancreatic duc t. Oesophagus Oesophagus and the gastro-oesophageal junction can be visuali zed in children up to 5 years old. Ultrasonography shows 100% sensitivity a nd 87.5% specificity compared to ambulatory pH-metry for gastro-oesophageal reflux disease diagnosis. Stomach Ultrasonography can be used to estimate whole gastric volume, antral area or diameters, antro-pyloric volume, trans pyloric flaw in fasting state and in response to test meal. Gallbladder UIt rasonography is reliable to estimate volume in fasting state and in respons e to test meal or exogenous stimulus. For both stomach and gallbladder: ind ications might include the study of healthy subjects and of pathophysiologi cally relevant conditions such as dysmotility-like dyspepsia, suspicion of delayed gastric emptying, diabetes mellitus, gallstone disease and effect o f drugs either delaying or accelerating motility. Common bile duct Ultrason ography can be used to estimate interprandial and postprandial common bile duct diameter in patients with clinical suspicion of common bile duct obstr uction in fasting state and in response to test meal or exogenous stimuli. Although functional ultrasonography is used mainly for research purposes, i ts simplicity makes it appealing for clinical use to assess gastrointestina l motility in health and disease.