Gastric emptying assessment before anesthesia induction
DECUBITUS
On arrival to the operating room, the parturients were placed in the right lateral decubitus position. Before anesthesia induction, the gastric antral cross-sectional area (CSA) was measured using a Venue 40 (GE Healthcare, Tokyo, Japan) ultrasound system with a 2 to 5 MHz curvilinear array low-frequency 4 C-RS probe to measure gastric emptying [The gastric antrum was generally imaged in the parasagittal plane just right of the midline of the epigastric area in parturients, surrounded by the left lobe of the liver anteriorly and pancreas posteriorly. The CSA of the antrum was calculated according to the formula described by Bolondi et al. [
Ultrasonographic image of the gastric antrumThe figure demonstrates two perpendicular diameters, line 1 and line 2, for cross-sectional area of the stomach antrumLine 1: Craniocaudal antral diameterLine 2: Anteroposterior antral diameterL, liver; F, fetal head