What is an oesophageal scan?
In kids, children can sometime be born with various anatomical oesophageal anomalies that can lead to aspiration of milk and fluids (where it enters the lung instead) and subsequently recurrent infections.
Other children have a normal oesophagus but abnormal movement during swallowing that hampers delivery of food to the stomach.
Some get the milk to the stomach, but like their adult counterparts fail to keep the fluids there as they reflux back up the oesophagus. In fact, this may be so bad that the patient may also aspirate into the lungs and get recurrent chest infections or asthma.
Similarly, adult motility may be impaired by various diseased conditions.
Often knowledge of these conditions can facilitate a definitive treatment plan.
By labelling various solid and liquid meals (e.g. milk) with a radioactive substance that emits a gamma ray, we can image the passage of the food substance through the oesophagus in real-time using a special machine called a gamma camera. We can even use the gamma ray counts over a period of time to plot the tracer progression on a curve and use the subsequent date to calculate the transit time.
All this information is useful to the referring surgeon, gastroenterologist and/or paediatrician.
What can I expect to happen?
You are required to fast overnight.
In the department you or your child will be given normal fluid/milk to practice swallowing before the actual study.
When ready you will be asked to dry swallow for 30 seconds as imaging is commenced. Then you will perform 4 bolus swallows. Imaging will be complete in 4minutes.
Children will be imaged by being given milk in a bottle over 4 minutes followed by normal milk.
After the swallow phase, you or your child will then be imaged every 10 seconds for 1 hour.
A repeat static image can be taken at 4-6 hours and 24 hours after the stomach phase to look for aspiration.
The nuclear physician will report the study.
