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A scintigraphic study of oropharyngeal swallowing dynamics in Chagas’ disease [Note 1. This work was carried out in the Departamento de ...]
Author(s) -
Nobre e Souza,
Dantas,
Ricardo Brandt de Oliveira,
Braga
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
neurogastroenterology and motility
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.489
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1365-2982
pISSN - 1350-1925
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2982.2000.00211.x
Subject(s) - swallowing , medicine , chagas disease , gastroenterology , bolus (digestion) , disease , surgery , pathology
We studied oropharyngeal function in patients with Chagas’ disease and oesophageal disease. Twenty‐four patients with Chagas’ disease, 17 of them with oesophageal disease, were submitted to scintigraphic oropharyngeal transit. A single swallow of a 10‐mL bolus of water labelled with 40 MBq 99m Tc‐phytate, followed by image acquisition at 20 images s –1 yielded time‐activity curves in which oropharyngeal dynamics was evaluated. Thirteen normal volunteers were used as controls. Oral transit was longer for chagasics with oesophageal disease than for controls (P=0.004) or for chagasics with a normal oesophagus (P=0.028). Oesophageal filling rate, measured by the slope of the ascending aspect of the oesophageal radioactivity curve, was lower for chagasics with oesophageal disease than for controls (P=0.037). Also, maximum oesophageal filling rate was lower (P=0.021) and occurred later (P=0.003) for chagasics with oesophageal disease than for controls. Pharyngeal clearance was positively correlated with oral transit (r=0.603, P=0.002). We conclude that chagasic oesophageal disease is associated with oral transit delay and a slower oesophageal filling rate.