Randomized Clinical Trial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Pharmacol Ther. Nov 6, 2016; 7(4): 572-578
Published online Nov 6, 2016. doi: 10.4292/wjgpt.v7.i4.572
Efficacy of small-volume simethicone given at least 30 min before gastroscopy
Mingjun Song, Andrew Boon Eu Kwek, Ngai Moh Law, Jeannie Peng Lan Ong, Jessica Yi-Lyn Tan, Prem Harichander Thurairajah, Daphne Shih Wen Ang, Tiing Leong Ang
Mingjun Song, Andrew Boon Eu Kwek, Ngai Moh Law, Jeannie Peng Lan Ong, Jessica Yi-Lyn Tan, Prem Harichander Thurairajah, Daphne Shih Wen Ang, Tiing Leong Ang, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Changi General Hospital, Singapore 529889, Singapore
Author contributions: Song M, Kwek ABE and Ang TL were responsible for the study conception and design; Song M was responsible for data analysis and interpretation, and manuscript drafting; Kwek ABE and Ang TL critically revised the article for important intellectual content; all the authors reviewed and approved the final version to be published.
Supported by Changi General Hospital Research Grant, No. 2015[CHF2015.02-S].
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the SingHealth Centralized Institutional Review Board (Ref: 2015/2519).
Clinical trial registration statement: The study is registered under clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02555228).
Informed consent statement: All study participants provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare no potential conflicting interests related to this paper.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Tiing Leong Ang, Chief, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Changi General Hospital, 2 Simei Street 3, Singapore 529889, Singapore. tiing_leong_ang@cgh.com.sg
Telephone: +65-68503974 Fax: +65-67816202
Received: June 27, 2016
Peer-review started: June 28, 2016
First decision: August 10, 2016
Revised: August 16, 2016
Accepted: October 17, 2016
Article in press: October 19, 2016
Published online: November 6, 2016
Processing time: 125 Days and 10 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: This is the first study to evaluate the efficacy of a low volume (5 mL) simethicone solution compared to a placebo using the McNally score to calculate the total mucosal visibility for gastroscopy. Our study showed that although earlier studies had favored higher volumes (typically 100 mL), a low volume is still effective as long as adequate premedication time of at least 30 min is allowed. Such a small volume is more suitable for patients with swallowing difficulties and the formulation had excellent patient compliance with no adverse effects.