Scintigraphy in the gastrointestinal tract.

Selected papers published over the past year in the areas of radionuclide hepatobiliary imaging, gastric emptying, and gastrointestinal bleeding are reviewed. Two advances in cholescintigraphy are particularly emphasized and discussed. First, morphine-augmented cholescintigraphy has established itself as an accurate alternative to 2 to 4 hour delayed imaging for the diagnosis of acute cholecystitis. Second, sincalide-stimulated cholescintigraphy with calculation of a gallbladder ejection fraction has proven to be a useful test for confirming the clinical diagnosis of chronic acalculous cholecystitis. Other hepatobiliary papers reviewed include those on the utility of cholescintigraphy in gallbladder perforation, hepatocellular carcinoma, liver transplantation, enterogastric reflux, and for the diagnosis of the postoperative complications of laparoscopic cholecystectomy and gallstone lithotripsy. The second major area of review includes papers published over the past year on gastric emptying, including investigations of methodology, physiology and pathophysiology, and clinical utility. A few papers utilizing radionuclide techniques for localizing gastrointestinal bleeding will also be reviewed.