Vol. 277, Issue 5, G993-G999, November 1999
Intestinal tachyarrhythmias during small bowel
ischemia
Scott A.
Seidel1,
Sanjay S.
Hegde1,
L. Alan
Bradshaw2,
J. K.
Ladipo1, and
William O.
Richards1,3
1 Department of Surgery,
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine,
3 Department of Surgery, Veterans
Affairs Medical Center, and
2 Living State Physics Group,
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt
University, Nashville, Tennessee 37232
The electrical control activity (ECA) of the
bowel is the omnipresent slow electrical wave of the intestinal tract.
Characterization of small bowel electrical activity during
ischemia may be used as a measure of intestinal viability. With
the use of an animal model of mesenteric ischemia, serosal
electrodes and a digital recording apparatus utilizing autoregressive
spectral analysis were used to monitor the ECA of 20 New Zealand White
rabbits during various lengths of ischemia. ECA frequency fell
from 18.2 ± 0.5 cycles per minute (cpm) at baseline to 12.2 ± 0.9 cpm (P < 0.05) after 30 min of
ischemia and was undetectable by 90 min of ischemia in
all animals. Tachyarrhythmias of the ECA were recorded in 55% of the
animals as early as 25 min after ischemia was induced and lasted from 1 to 48 min. Frequencies ranged from 25 to 50 cpm. These
tachyarrhythmias were seen only during ischemia, suggesting that they are pathognomonic for intestinal ischemia. The use of the detection of ECA changes during intestinal ischemia may
allow earlier diagnosis of mesenteric ischemia.
mesenteric ischemia; electrophysiology; gastrointestinal
motility; small intestine; electrical control activity; basic
electrical rhythm
