The aim of the study was to determine the feasibility of using a breath-holding test in assessing the sensitivity of the peripheral chemoreflex compared with the single-breath carbon dioxide test. The study involved 48 healthy volunteers between the ages of 18-29 years. The breath-holding test was performed followed by the single-breath carbon dioxide test on the next day. A month after the fir...

The frequency of negative hydrogen breath tests due to colonic bacterial flora which are unable to produce hydrogen was determined after oral lactulose challenge in 98 healthy Dutch schoolchildren. There was a negative result in 9.2%. The probability of a false normal lactose breath test (1:77) was calculated from these results together with those from a separate group of children with lactose ...

There is no easy and reliable test universally accepted in clinical practice to measure fat digestion. Fat balance studies are insensitive and unpleasant for regular clinical assessment, direct measures of pancreatic function are impractical for repeated use, the “steatocrit” method is not quantitative; tubeless tests have not proved to be eVective substitutes; and clinical measures, such as st...

Although scintigraphy, a non-invasive procedure, is usually considered to be the reference technique for measuring gastric emptying in humans, several drawbacks limit its application in routine practice. Expensive equipment is required and access to a nuclear medicine department, and the use of radioactive isotopes (generally Tc and In) can produce low but significant irradiation. It is diYcult...

BACKGROUND Several modifications of the 13C-urea breath test have been published. For reasons of cost efficiency and practicability, the urea dose and measurement duration should be reduced while still maintaining excellent diagnostic accuracy. AIMS To establish a validated simple protocol for the urea breath test with 50 mg 13C-urea and to compare this protocol with the conventional urea bre...