Gastroesophageal motility disorders in Chagas disease, Hospital de Clínicas, Montevideo, Uruguay, 2024
Abstract
A descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out, with the target population being patients over 18 years of age with Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi) infection, assisted in the period from July 1 to September 1, 2024, at the Chagas Disease Clinic of the Hospital de Clínicas, Montevideo, Uruguay. Patients with swallowing disorders and pregnant women were excluded.
The method used to assess gastroesophageal involvement is esophageal transit through the use of radiotracers. It is a diagnostic study that uses a solution with a radioactive substance (metastable technetium 99) and liquid, which is ingested to evaluate its passage through the digestive tract. This was recorded in a sequence of images by a gamma camera, whose data were digitized in time-activity curves, characterizing the alterations in esophageal transit and gastric emptying.
20% had at least one digestive symptom. Of this percentage, all presented slow esophageal transit and 10% presented slow gastric emptying.
Of the eight asymptomatic patients (80%), 50% presented slow esophageal transit in the middle and distal third, 12.5% slow transit in the distal third, 12.5% slow transit throughout the esophageal transit, and 25% had a tortuous esophagus. Scintigraphy is a very sensitive but not very specific diagnostic method; it was concluded that it is relevant to include it in a study algorithm in this population. This allows measures to be taken to reduce the progression to a more severe symptomatic stage.
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