Got milk? It’s a question patients who need to undergo an abdominal and pelvic CT scan might want to ask their doctors, as new research finds that whole milk is as effective a contrast agent as the nasty-tasting barium “shake” more commonly used. Not only does milk have a taste most people find more pleasant, it’s also less likely to cause potential unpleasant side effects such as abdominal cramping, nausea and diarrhea.
The research comes from a group of doctors at the department of radiology, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City. They were looking to find a cost effective and more tolerable contrast agent for people having abdominal and pelvic scans for gastrointestinal problems, specifically of the small bowel, such as inflammatory bowel disease, neoplasm or intestinal ischemia. The scans are good diagnostic tools but the barium preparation that distends the bowel to enable the imaging is notoriously problematic for patients.
The research involved 215 gastrointestinal abdominal/pelvic scan patients, about half of whom drank a quart of whole milk while the other drank a little more than a quart of the barium fluid in the hour before the test. The findings: Images facilitated by both drinks were equally useful, and the milk group patients reported the milk was easy to drink and caused few if any side effects.
One of the study authors, Lisa Shah-Patel, MD, explained to me that whole milk has a high fat content, which is what helps to create bowel distention. On a CT scan, the milk inside the bowel looks gray, while the IV contrast agent (used in all abdominal/pelvic CT scans) looks brighter. This outlines the bowel wall, giving the radiologist sufficient contrast to visualize what could be causing a patient abdominal pain. Since it’s the high-fat content of milk that makes it work, I found myself musing about whether researchers might consider studying how well Häagen-Dazs would work… but in the meantime, milk is an improvement over barium, at least in terms of taste.
