Gastric emptying in children with gastroesophageal reflux. II. The relationship to retching symptoms following antireflux surgery.

Following antireflux surgery, children with persistent retching symptoms are presumably more likely to have delayed gastric emptying. We report 66 children between 2 weeks and 16 years of age who had an operation to control gastroesophageal reflux (GER). All patients had GER confirmed by 18- to 24-hour esophageal pH monitoring. Preoperative gastric emptying studies were performed in each patient with 99m-Tc sulfur colloid in apple juice. In addition to the percent gastric emptying (%GE), an effective gastric emptying was estimated by correcting the %GE for postcibal reflux (corrected %GE). Repeat 18- to 24-hour esophageal pH monitoring was performed postoperatively in all patients, and a repeat gastric emptying study was performed in 32 patients. After an average postoperative follow up of 6 months (range of 1 to 18 months), persistent retching was present in 12 (18%) patients. The retching was associated with dumping symptoms in six patients. Retching was seen in patients with a preoperative increase in effective gastric emptying (10/34, 29%, P less than .05) or a decrease in effective gastric emptying (2/15, 13%, NS), and not in patients with an effective gastric emptying within the control range (0/17, 0%). Postoperatively, retching with dumping symptoms was associated with an increased effective gastric emptying, and retching without dumping symptoms with a decreased effective gastric emptying. In conclusion, persistent retching followed anti-reflux surgery in children is related to extremes in effective gastric emptying. The preoperative measurement of corrected %GE identifies children at increased risk for this postoperative problem.