Colonic transit in subjects with spinal cord injuries
type: CreativeWork
description: The rehabilitation of patients with spinal cord injuries (SCI) is long and difficult. Not only do they lose mobility but they also have changes in bowel continence caused by loss of voluntary motor and sensory function and damage to the visceral nerve supply. The maintenance and management of bowel function causes major morbidity for subjects with SCI. The effect of SCI on colonic function is poorly understood and little studied. Aim: This study sought to establish a method of studying regional colonic transit and to investigate whether the level of SCI influences colonic transit. Patients and Methods Sixteen subjects (8 paraplegics and 8 tetraplegics) with spinal cord injury, at least one year previously were recruited. The tetraplegics group had spinal cord injuries above T1 and the paraplegic group had injuries below T1 . They were given a pancake labelled with 10-18 Mbq of ln-111 Amberlite resin to eat. Anterior and posterior images were acquired for 400 seconds each, using a 40 cm field of view gamma camera, once on the first day and then 3 times a day for the next 4 days. The subjects were asked to report every time they had a bowel evacuation. No laxatives or enemas were permitted during the study. Subjects were permitted to eat and drink normally after the first images (3 hours) were acquired. Seven regions of interest (ROI) outlining, 1) ascending colon, 2) hepatic flexure, 3) transverse colon, 4) splenic flexure, 5) descending colon, 6) rectosigmoid and 7) total abdominal activity, were drawn on each set of anterior and posterior images. The counts were decay corrected. The decay corrected counts were used to calculate the geometric mean (GM), for each region, at each time point. The GM was used to calculate the percentage of the total abdominal activity in each region, at each time point. Colonic transit was assessed in 4 ways. Firstly, 3 independent Nuclear Medicine Physicians visually assessed transit on hard copies of the images and classified subjects…
abstract: The rehabilitation of patients with spinal cord injuries (SCI) is long and difficult. Not only do they lose mobility but they also have changes in bowel continence caused by loss of voluntary motor and sensory function and damage to the visceral nerve supply. The maintenance and management of bowel function causes major morbidity for subjects with SCI. The effect of SCI on colonic function is poorly understood and little studied. Aim: This study sought to establish a method of studying regional colonic transit and to investigate whether the level of SCI influences colonic transit. Patients and Methods Sixteen subjects (8 paraplegics and 8 tetraplegics) with spinal cord injury, at least one year previously were recruited. The tetraplegics group had spinal cord injuries above T1 and the paraplegic group had injuries below T1 . They were given a pancake labelled with 10-18 Mbq of ln-111 Amberlite resin to eat. Anterior and posterior images were acquired for 400 seconds each, using a 40 cm field of view gamma camera, once on the first day and then 3 times a day for the next 4 days. The subjects were asked to report every time they had a bowel evacuation. No laxatives or enemas were permitted during the study. Subjects were permitted to eat and drink normally after the first images (3 hours) were acquired. Seven regions of interest (ROI) outlining, 1) ascending colon, 2) hepatic flexure, 3) transverse colon, 4) splenic flexure, 5) descending colon, 6) rectosigmoid and 7) total abdominal activity, were drawn on each set of anterior and posterior images. The counts were decay corrected. The decay corrected counts were used to calculate the geometric mean (GM), for each region, at each time point. The GM was used to calculate the percentage of the total abdominal activity in each region, at each time point. Colonic transit was assessed in 4 ways. Firstly, 3 independent Nuclear Medicine Physicians visually assessed transit on hard copies of the images and classified subjects…
author: Freedman, Patricia Noel
language: eng
date published: 2001
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:23:22Z
provider: University of Cape Town
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Division of Nuclear Medicine

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/26358