Rectal Accommodation in Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Moon, Won; Lee, Oh Young; Kim, Jung Mi; Koh, Dong Hee; Lee, Hang Lak; Yoon, Byung Chul; Choi, Ho Soon; Hahm, Joon Soo; Lee, Min Ho; Lee, Dong Hoo

Abstract

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Visceral hypersensitivity has been proposed as a biologic marker of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Several studies have demonstrated that patients with IBS have lower threshold for perception and increased sensation of discomfort. Our aim was to investigate if IBS patients have different rectal accommodation compared with normal controls or if the differences exist in rectal accommodation according to the IBS subtypes.
METHODS
Twenty three Rome II positive IBS patients and 9 normal controls were recruited for the study. A rectal bag catheter was placed, and then bag inflation was performed via a barostat.
RESULTS
There were no differences in rectal accommodation between IBS patients (1.1 mL/s) and the normal controls (1.4 mL/s). But, there were significant differences in rectal accommodation between diarrhea predominant IBS patients (1.0 mL/s) and the normal controls (1.4 mL/s) (p=0.05). There was no correlation between rectal accommodation and the severity of overall gastrointestinal symptoms, but the severity of abdominal discomfort or pain during rectal distension tended to be associated with rectal accommodation (p=0.08).
CONCLUSIONS
There were no differences between IBS patients and normal controls in rectal accommodation. But, lowered rectal accommodation was significant in diarrhea predominant-IBS patinets.