A randomized, placebo-controlled, multicenter study of the safety and efficacy of a new polyethylene glycol laxative.

Objective: This study was designed to determine the efficacy and safety of a new laxative, Braintree polyethylene glycol (PEG) laxative (Miralax, Braintree Laboratories, Braintree, MA).

Methods: This investigation was designed as a placebo-controlled, blinded, randomized, multicenter parallel trial. Study subjects were constipated but otherwise healthy outpatients who had < or =2 stools during a 7-day qualification period.

Fat absorption in patients with functional intestinal lymphangiectasia and lymphangiectic cysts.

Nine patients with endoscopically identified dilated lacteals of the duodenum were studied for evidence of pathologic intestinal lymphangiectasia. Three of the nine patients also had lymphangietic cysts in association with dilated lacteals. Duodenal biopsies, laboratory data, and imaging studies were performed in each patient.

Cholecystokinin cholescintigraphy: detection of abnormal gallbladder motor function in patients with chronic acalculous gallbladder disease.

CCK cholescintigrams were performed in 374 patients with recurrent postprandial right upper quadrant pain, biliary colic, and a normal gallbladder sonogram and/or cholecystogram. The results of these examinations were correlated with the patients' final medical/surgical diagnoses. Twenty-seven patients recruited as control volunteers without objective clinical evidence of biliary disease also underwent CCK cholescintigraphy to determine if the degree of gallbladder contraction post-CCK differs in symptomatic versus asymptomatic subjects.