Just by "drinking" a cup of "milk tea", patients with stomach problems such as cerebral infarction can also have a stomach check!

Gastric disease is one of the common problems that plague modern people. Traditional gastroscopy requires intubation or anesthesia, which makes many people reluctant to try it, especially the elderly, people who are sensitive to pain or are not suitable for anesthesia or gastric intubation.

65-year-old Grandma Zhang from Changsha has been unable to eat independently since she suffered a cerebral infarction in 2022 and has been wearing a gastric tube. Recently, she was hospitalized for abdominal pain in the General Internal Medicine Department of the Yuelu Mountain Branch of Hunan Provincial People's Hospital. According to the patient's condition, a gastroscopy is required to confirm the diagnosis.

However, after comprehensive evaluation, the anesthesia department's doctors believed that the elderly man had a very high risk of anesthesia, and he was unconscious after a stroke, so he could not cooperate with the gastroscopy. If a conventional ultrasound examination was performed, the stomach would not be able to be seen because the stomach cavity was not full and there was gas interference.

(▲A doctor from the Ultrasound Department 3 of Hunan Provincial People's Hospital performs gastric ultrasound angiography on a patient)

After full communication between the Department of Internal Medicine and the Ultrasound Department III, it was decided to perform a gastric ultrasound angiography on the patient, that is, injecting contrast agent into the stomach through a gastric tube to fill the gastric cavity, so that the condition of the gastric wall and gastric cavity can be examined and analyzed.

Zhang Yi, director of the third ultrasound department of Hunan Provincial People's Hospital, said that this painless, non-invasive, radiation-free, simple, flexible, and real-time dynamic examination method is suitable for diagnosing organic gastric lesions such as gastritis, peptic ulcer, gastric cancer, gastric polyps, gastric submucosal space-occupying lesions; as well as functional lesions such as gastroesophageal reflux, gastroduodenal reflux, and gastric motility dysfunction. It provides a new option for physical examinations of healthy people, preliminary screening of high-risk groups for gastric cancer, and patients who cannot tolerate gastroscopy or have contraindications to gastroscopy. Moreover, the contrast agent used in the examination is made from non-toxic and harmless foods such as coix seeds, yam, and tangerine peel. After being prepared, it is similar to a cup of "milk tea", with a smooth taste and easy to accept.

Hunan Medical Chat Special Author: Liang Hui and Xie Jingni from Hunan Provincial People's Hospital

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(Edited by ZS)