Assessment of the cardiovascular and gastrointestinal autonomic complications of diabetes

Table 3 A comparison of the various contemporaneous techniques for the measurement of gastrointestinal motility[43]

Technique	Area of the GI tract evaluated	Length of stay required in clinic/office	Acceptability to the patient	Radiation exposure	Physiological conditions of measurement	Standardization of test	Measurement of propagating contractions	Availability/expense of test	Ease of interpretation of the result
Gastric emptying scintigraphy	Stomach	c.5 h	High	Yes	Yes	No	No	Widely/moderately expensive	Moderate
Whole gut scintigraphy	Pan-GI	c.8 h	High	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Very limited/very expensive	Difficult
Radio - opaque marker study	Stomach colon	30 min to	High	Yes	Yes	No	No	Widely/inexpensive	Easy
13C octanoic acid breath test	Stomach	c.4 h	High	No	Yes	Yes	No	Very limited/inexpensive	Relatively easy
Wireless motility capsule	Pan-GI	c.30 min	High	None	Yes	Yes	No	Limited/currently moderately expensive	Relatively easy

GI: Gastrointestinal.