New test materials produced with iopamidol and agar for videofluorography in patients with dysphagia

Abstract

We prepared a new experimental food to be used in the test to examine the swallowing function． This new food contains agar as its basic material and iopamidol， which is known to have greater safety than barium sulfate and amidotrizic acid． The texture of this new food including its hardness and adhesiveness has been improved so that the food may have sufficient radiopacity for videofluorography． We prepared six types of experimental food with different hardness levels： 2.20×10²N/m²， 6.53×10²N/m²， 2.90×10³N/m²， 7.49×10³N/m²，1.09×10⁴N/m² and 1.86×10⁴N/m²．They were given to an 85-year-old patient with oral cancer． This elderly patient showed difficulty in swallowing depending on the degrees of hardness of the experimental food． Videofluorography revealed the effects of the hardness of food on the patient’s swallowing function． This newly developed food is regarded as a useful test material to be used in the study to examine the relationship between the texture of food and the swallowing function．