Gastric Emptying Study Grade
Reads a standardized 4-hour gastric emptying study against its own published thresholds.
Open the calculator → Runs in your browser. Data leaves only if you deliberately send a problem report from the interactive tool.
Example
- Meal still in the stomach at 2 hours
- 45 percent
- Meal still in the stomach at 4 hours
- 18 percent
- Drugs that speed emptying up or slow it down were stopped two days beforehand
- Yes
Result: grade 1
The tool opens with these values already filled in. Replace them with your own.
What the result means
- 4 hours, 10 percent or less
- Within normal limits. Emptying is delayed above 10 percent at 4 hours.
- 4 hours, 11 to 20 percent
- Grade 1, mild delay.
- 4 hours, 21 to 35 percent
- Grade 2, moderate delay.
- 4 hours, 36 to 50 percent
- Grade 3, severe delay.
- 4 hours, above 50 percent
- Grade 4, very severe delay.
- 2 hours, above 60 percent
- Delayed at that point. A normal 2-hour value does not rule delayed emptying out, and the grade needs the 4-hour image.
- 1 hour, below 30 percent
- Rapid emptying, against a normal 1-hour range of 30 to 90 percent. It is a finding on this study, not the absence of one.
- Glucose above 250
- Glucose above 250 to 275 mg/dL delays emptying by itself, and the protocol asks for it below 200. The study is measuring the glucose.
- Drugs not held
- Prokinetics and opiates both have to be stopped two days beforehand, or the study is measuring the drug.
What you enter
- Meal still in the stomach at 1 hour: normal 30 to 90, below 30 is rapid
- Meal still in the stomach at 2 hours: delayed above 60
- Meal still in the stomach at 4 hours: the value that grades the study, delayed above 10
- Blood glucose at the time of the study
- Drugs that speed emptying up or slow it down were stopped two days beforehand
How this is calculated
Abell TL, Camilleri M, Donohoe K, et al. Consensus recommendations for gastric emptying scintigraphy: a joint report of the American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society and the Society of Nuclear Medicine. J Nucl Med Technol. 2008;36(1):44-54. Read the source ↗
A reference and educational tool. Not medical, legal, or financial advice, and not a substitute for clinician judgment.