Abstract
We evaluated an analysis of 21 patients who were performed percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) from the view point of respiratory tract infection and complications and investigated also changes of gastric emptying during 2 years in 9 PEG patients. The mean duration of PEG was 24.9 months. The incidence of pulmonary infection was 18 patients and improved in 16 patients (88.9%) soon after PEG, but 3 patients accompanied with gastroesophageal ref lux (GER) were worse long after PEG. Major and minor complications occurred in 14.3% and 28.6% of patients, respectively. In 5 patients, the fistula was damaged and PEG was necessary to replace at another portion. A radioisotopic method was employed to study the rate of gastric emptying in 9 patients before, l month and 2 years later after PEG and when PEG was placed at another portion. In all cases, severe delay was observed after 2 years later after PEG, especially after PEG replacement. Our study suggents that PEG placement and especially replacement causes a delayed gastric emptying and perhaps deterioration of respiratory tract infection as a result of GER.
