Ultrasound assessment of gastric emptying time in preterm infants: A prospective observational study

BACKGROUND In paediatric anaesthesia, pre-operative fasting should be short to prevent discomfort, hunger, thirst and metabolic disorders. Current European guidelines recommend pre-operative fasting times of 4 h for breast milk and 6 h for formula milk in infants, whereas some national guidelines allow both until 4 h before anaesthesia. OBJECTIVE We evaluated the gastric emptying times of preterm infants after breast milk and formula milk, hypothesising that the mean gastric emptying time would be less than 4 h. DESIGN A prospective, observational, noninterventional cohort study. SETTING Neonatal ICU of a university hospital from August to September 2017. PATIENTS Twenty-two infants with a postmenstrual mean ± SD (range) age of 35 ± 2 (32 to 40) weeks were included. Based on their prescription plan, 10 infants received breast milk and 12 received formula milk with a total volume of 50 ± 16 (24 to 70) ml. INTERVENTIONS Gastric emptying was examined by sonographic measurements of the gastric antral area (GAA) before (FT0) and hourly after breast milk or formula milk feeding (FT1 to FT3). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Estimated gastric emptying time after enteral feeding with breast milk and formula milk in preterm infants. RESULTS The GAA of the preterm infants initially increased and subsequently decreased after feeding. GAA correlated significantly with fasting time (r = −0.53, P 
Source: European Journal of Anaesthesiology - Category: Anesthesiology Tags: Paediatric anaesthesia Source Type: research