A system for ambulatory monitoring and computerised analysis of oesophageal motility and luminal pH

It is often desirable to monitor physiological events from subjects free to participate in their normal daily activities. This is especially so where clinical symptoms are elusive or precipitated by specific activities. Through ambulatory monitoring, evidence of a causal relationship between recorded parameters and the spontaneous onset of symptoms may be revealed.We describe an ambulatory monitoring system which permits continuous 24-hour recording of oesophageal motility from three levels within the oesophagus together with luminal pH.Computerised analysis of the recorded data addresses many of the problems associated with processing the information accrued through long-term monitoring by providing an automatic comparison of patient data against either preselected values or those of the program's algorithm. Motility is quantified in terms of wave frequency, amplitude, duration and temporal relationship together with an integration of the wave area and mean pressure baseline. The corresponding pH data is quantified as frequency, duration and integrated area of pH excursions throughout a range of pH1–8.This system provides access to the entire patient record which may either be viewed on screen, analysed or output to a printer. Analysis yields a tabulated breakdown of motility and pH events from any section of the patient's record. Selective analysis readily permits statistical comparison of discrete time-matched samples corresponding to different patient circumstances.