Inaccuracy of peranesthetic gastric intubation for emptying liquid stomach contents

To assess the accuracy of the method of peranesthetic gastric intubation for emptying the liquid stomach contents, this procedure was tried on 80 patients undergoing general anesthesia. Half of the patients had a double-barrelled 16F-Argyle Salem sump tube, length 120 cm, size 16 CH, and the other half had a single-barrelled stomach tube, length 80 cm, size 25 CH. After emptying the stomach with the tubes 25 ml of glucose was given through the gastric tube to half of the Salem tube group and half of the stomach tube group. Similarly 100 ml of glucose was given to half of the Salem tube group and half of the stomach tube group. After instillation of glucose 25 ml or 100 ml, the Salem tube recovered 21.0 +/- 9.1 ml (mean +/- s.d.), median 24 ml, range 6-36 ml or 86.8 +/- 26.9 ml, median 92 ml, range 18-136 ml, respectively, and the stomach tube 17.1 +/- 10.8 ml, median 18 ml, range 2-34 ml or 54.0 +/- 28.5 ml, median 50 ml, range 14-104 ml, respectively. This indicates that the method of gastric intubation for emptying the liquid stomach contents is inaccurate.