The use of metoclopramide for the small bowel meal examination: pre-procedural versus peri-procedural oral administration.

Administration of oral metoclopramide reduces the transit time for barium to reach the caecum during a small bowel meal (SBM). Current practice is to administer the metoclopramide 5-10 min prior to the barium. We devised a prospective randomized, controlled trial to assess whether administration of metoclopramide 90 min prior to the barium would further reduce the transit time without adversely affecting the quality of the study. Although administration of oral metoclopramide significantly reduced the transit time when compared with a control population, there was no significant difference in transit time between the groups which received metoclopramide.