Source: Phlebology  |  Posted 9 years ago

Rome I criteria for diagnosing irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) may be more sensitive in identifying patients than Rome II criteria, say researchers in the United States.

They also say a community-based, geographically stratified sample of 1,010 adult women indicates lifetime IBS prevalence is 5.4 percent among women in the US.

Investigators from six US research centres found Rome I criteria was more sensitive at 84 percent than Rome II at 49 percent in a second sample of 1,014 US women. This sample was also geographically diverse, and participants had been previously diagnosed with IBS.

The researchers, led by Dr. William Chey of the University of Michigan Medical Centre in Ann Arbor, point out that Rome I and Rome II criteria did not necessarily identify the same IBS patients. There was 47 percent agreement between Rome I and Rome II, but only 58 percent of the patients with IBS identified by Rome I fulfilled Rome II.

They suggest the stricter Rome II requirement for abdominal pain may play a role in the differences in diagnoses. Rome II stipulates that pain or discomfort must occur for more than three months in the past year.

"Although patients identified by Rome II had more recent abdominal pain or discomfort, they did not have more severe or debilitating pain than patients identified by Rome I," the researchers explain.

Only 17.7 percent of the IBS patients surveyed did not meet either Rome I or Rome II criteria for IBS.

The investigators say their findings "raise questions about whether the Rome II criteria are sensitive enough to be useful in clinical practice."