When should imaging begin during a gastric-emptying study?

Imaging during a gastric-emptying study should commence immediately after meal consumption. This timing is crucial because the primary goal of the study is to assess how quickly food leaves the stomach and enters the small intestine. Starting imaging immediately allows healthcare professionals to capture the initial gastric content and determine the rates of gastric emptying accurately.

Monitoring begins right after the patient consumes the meal to ensure that any changes in gastric contents can be captured from the very start. This way, the radiologist can evaluate the function of the stomach under normal physiological conditions. If imaging were to start later, such as 30 minutes or an hour after consumption, it might miss critical data on the actual initial movement of food from the stomach, potentially leading to inaccurate results regarding gastric emptying.

The other options suggest delaying the imaging for a period of time after the meal or starting before the meal, which would not provide an accurate representation of gastric emptying dynamics as intended in this type of study.