PROLONGED AMBULATORY SMALL-INTESTINAL AND COLONIC MOTILITY MONITORING- POTENTIAL IN IRRITABLE-BOWEL-SYNDROME - FIRST REPORT OF PROLONGED AMBULATORY ESOPHAGEAL, SMALL-INTESTINAL AND COLONIC MOTILITY IN THE SAME PATIENT

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), which affects up to 25% of the populat ion in western countries and accounts for up to 50% of referrals to ga stroenterologists, remains mainly a diagnosis of exclusion. We have st udied, for the first time, prolonged ambulatory motility recordings fr om the oesophagus, small intestine and colon of a patient who was refe rred to us with a 12-year history of abdominal pain and a presumptive diagnosis of IBS. The results indicated that the diagnosis was pseudo- obstruction syndrome rather than IBS. Wider clinical use of the new te chniques of prolonged ambulatory intestinal motility monitoring in ISS would offer considerable potential not only in achieving a greater un derstanding of its pathophysiology but also in providing a more precis e definition of clinical and therapeutic subgroups.