Nausea and vomiting symptoms significantly improved in the group with ICC greater than or equal to 2.00 (vomiting change, –2.07; P less than .001 and bloating change, –1.80; P less than .001) with a weaker association with symptom improvement in the group with ICC less than 2.00 (vomiting change, –1.65; P =.035 and bloating change, –1.00; P = 0.86). TSS improved by 52% in the ICC group with greater than or equal to 2.00 (P = .002) and by 29.6% in the ICC less than 2.00 group (P = .047).
“The observation that some patients with severe depletion of ICC showed improvement in symptoms might indicate differential loss of specific type of ICC cells,” Dr. Abell and his colleagues wrote. “Better understanding of response to GES in patients with particular type of ICC loss might shed light on the mechanism of GES, as well as predicting and selecting patients who respond better. Future studies should focus on stratifying patients based on predominant type of ICC loss as it relates to severity of symptoms and response to GES.”
Dr. Abell is the founder of ADEPT-GI and has intellectual property rights related to the technology in this study. The other authors declare no relevant financial disclosures.
SOURCE: Omer E et al. J Clin Gastroenterol. 2018 Apr 18. doi: 10.1097/MCG.0000000000001025.
*This story was updated on 4/30/2018.