Investigating colonic dysmotility via ultrasound

Colonic dysmotility is very common and requires non-invasive/point-of-care diagnostic methods in both children and adult care. We are developing an assessment of human colonic motor patterns, the biomarkers of colon motility, via non-invasive ultrasound, providing anatomical, neurogenic and myogenic features of colon motor patterns.

What is ultrasound?

Medical ultrasound is a diagnostic technique to create images of internal organs. The usage of ultrasound to produce visual images for medicine is called medical ultrasonography or simply sonography. Here we generate videos of large intestine (colon) movements, to see if the characteristic motor patterns are normal.

Eligibility Criteria:

• Adults aged 18 – 95
• Healthy volunteers and patients with chronic refractory constipation

What the study involves

Patients will receive abdominal ultrasound scanning to capture movements of the colon. The videos thus recorded are analyzed via sophisticated spatiotemporal mapping techniques that we are developing.

Study Duration:

One or more sessions of two hours

Compensation

We will provide parking reimbursement and financial compensation per hour.

Contact us to know further information about the study:

Research Principal investigator: Dr. Jihong Chen MD PhD. Email: chen338@mcmaster.ca

Research Coordinator: Amer Hussain, PhD Candidate. Email: hussaa1@mcmaster.ca

Sponsor Funding/Funding Disclosures:

This study is supported by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR)

Research Team:

Dr. Jihong Chen, Dr. Jan D. Huizinga, Mr. Amer Hussain, Ms Lijun Liu, Mr. Khawar Ali, Mr Zhenyu Zhang.

This study was approved by the Hamilton Integrated Research Ethics Board (#12580).