34. Baastrup's disease is a benign condition, which presents as chronic low back
pain. It is also known as kissing spine syndrome and refers to close
approximation of adjacent spinous processes producing inflammation and
back pain.
112. In newborns and infants, gastric emptying is evaluated using milk or formula mixed with 99m Tc-sulfur
colloid. The patient should have been fasting for approximately 4 h before the study. Barium studies should
not be obtained within 48 h before scintigraphy. The total volume of milk or formula to be administered
should be approximately the same as the child usually takes in a regular meal. The tracer is mixed with
approximately a third of the total expected volume to be administered, followed by the nonradioactive
volume. Oral feeding is preferred, but depending on the patients condition, labeled formula or milk can be
administered by nasogastric or gastrostomy tube.
The patient is placed supine on the imaging table, and the g-camera, equipped with a low-energy high-
resolution collimator, is placed under the table. An initial image is used to determine the amount of tracer
that has already left the stomach. Dynamic imaging is obtained for 60 min at 1 frame/min. Regions of
interest are marked over the stomach, the esophagus, the rest of the abdomen, and the back-ground, and
timeactivity curves, corrected for decay, are obtained. The gastric timeactivity curve after placement of
the child on the examining table provides another measure of gastric emptying time. Results are expressed
as the percentage of the initial activity in the stomach (4345). There are no widely accepted standards of
normal gastric emptying times in this group. A study on healthy infants revealed a 1-h normal gastric
residual of 48%70%. Another study showed that gastric emptying at 1 h in children younger than 2 y was
27%81%. Gastric emptying time is affected by the position of the patient and other factors such as type and
volume of food, patient anxiety, and pain. Children that show slow gastric emptying when supine can show
rapid emptying by a simple change of position (45).
Emptying more than 40% at 1 hour is considered normal
115. All GES studies utilized the recommended standard solid meal consisting of 2
pieces of white toast, 120 mL of scrambled egg substitute (equivalent of 2
large eggs), a 15 g packet of jelly, and 120 mL of water (13). Technetium-99-
labeled sulfur colloid was utilized for all studies and was mixed in the egg
substitute prior to cooking. Meals were consumed within a 10-minute period,
after which a baseline scintigraphic image was obtained. Anterior and
posterior images were acquired concurrently and a geometric mean value was
calculated (12). Subsequent images were taken at 1-hour intervals over a 4-
hour period. If a child was unable to consume the entire meal within a 10-
minute period or if they vomited within the 4-hour duration of the GES
study, he/she was excluded from the primary data analysis and
labeled as unable to complete GES.
Interpretation the same as adults
157. A generalized slow pattern for colon transit is typically seen as delayed progression, a
persistent diffuse retention of activity throughout all segments of the colon, and a geometric
center of less than 4.1 at 48h and between 4.1and 6.2 at 72h.
The pattern described as suggestive of colonic inertia demonstrates failure of the radiotracer
to progress beyond the splenic flexure, with a geometric center of less than 4.1at 48 and 72h.
Functional outlet obstruction is present when activity has progressed into the rectosigmoid
colon but then fails to be expelled, with a geometric center of more than 4.1 at 48h and less
than 6.2 at 72h.
To determine the amount of activity that has been defecated and left the body(region7),
counting of activity in the stool is not required.
Excreted-stool activity can be inferred from the total available counts on day 1 of the study
obtained from the average of total abdominal counts between 2 and 5h(as described for
terminal ileum filling analysis of small-bowel transit). After decay correction, the counts
remaining in the body are subtracted from the total initially available, and the difference is
the activity that has been excreted.