Study of segmental colonic transit time in healthy men.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: There are few reports of the segmental colonic transit time (SCTT) in healthy men. To clarify the SCTT for healthy men, the author measured the SCTT of healty men using radiopaque markers (RM).

METHODOLOGY: The author analyzed the SCTT of 26 healthy men, who were aged from 24 to 60 years and had a mean age of 48.8 years, with RM (20 radiopaque polyvinyl chloride 0-rings). The criteria for participation included a usual stool frequency of between three per week and three per day, no history of gastrointestinal disease, and no use of medications known to affect gastrointestinal motility.

RESULTS

The overall gastrointestinal transit time was 36.2±5.1 hours, and the transit time from the mouth to the cecum was 6.8±1.4 hours. The half-dose transit times of the ileocecal valve, hepatic flexure, splenic flexure, descending-sigmoid line, and evacuation were 6.9±1.6, 15.9±1.7, 18.8±1.7, 24.3±4.4 and 36.4±5.3 hours, respectively. The ascending (9.5±2.3 hours) and descending colon (5.5±4.1 hours) had shorter transit times than the sigmoid-rectum section (12.7±2.1 hours) (p<0.001, p<0.01, respectively), and the transverse colon (4.2±2.1 hours) had a shorter transit time than the ascending colon (p<0.05). There were no significant differences in transit time between the descending and transverse colon.

CONCLUSIONS

Measuring the SCTT using RM may be effective for detecting the SCTT of specific sections of the bowel. This method is simple and can be easily performed at any radiology department.