The effect on gastric emptying of synthetic salmon calcitonin administered intravenously (415 pmol bolus injection followed by infusion to reach an overall dose of 62.25 pmol.kg-1 body mass) versus placebo was examined in 13 healthy men. Gastric emptying of a radiolabeled solid meal was assessed with a gamma camera. The gastric emptying course was analyzed with the use of the power-exponential fitting. A marked delay in gastric emptying was observed in all subjects studied: the median gastric half emptying time was 60.3 min after placebo and 196.5 min after calcitonin (p less than 0.001). At the same time, analysis of the parameter S revealed that calcitonin did not elicit any consistent change in the shape of gastric emptying curves.