Research by scientists in the Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre and the Sir Peter Mansfield Magnetic Resonance Centre at the University of Nottingham developing new non-invasive tests to measure gastrointestinal transit has been accepted for publication in the leading peer-reviewed journal Neurogastroenterology and Motility.
Gastrointestinal transit tests are useful to characterise and help to manage some common conditions like constipation. Their paper, entitled “Novel MRI tests of orocecal transit time and whole gut transit time: studies in normal subjects”, describes the development of novel MRI gut transit marker pills that can be imaged non-invasively in the gut revealing how long it takes for food to go through the gastrointestinal tract. The method is compared here to a standard X-ray technique showing good correlation of the measurements.
This new method is non invasive, highly patient acceptable and does not expose the patient to ionizing radiation which will allow its use in young women and children, a group in whom constipation is common and assessment of transit often clinically useful.
Find out more about gastrointestinal MRI research at the University of Nottingham.
The University of Nottingham School of Medicine Nottingham, NG7 2UH
email:GI_MRI@nottingham.ac.uk