Low Risk of Irritable Bowel Syndrome afterClostridium difficileInfection

Abstract

We have shown that while transient functional bowel disorder occurred in 34.7% of patients (eight of 23 patients) recently infected with C difficile, only 4.3% of patients (one of 23 patients) had symptoms indicative of IBS after three months (ie, postinfectious IBS). Because an age-related reduction in immune responsiveness has been documented, it can be speculated that the low incidence of postinfectious IBS may be explained by the older age of the study population. Therefore, it cannot be excluded that the findings may be different in younger patients.

Effect of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation on Recurrence in Multiply Recurrent Clostridium difficile Infection

“…It is also possible that some of the patients enrolled in this trial were colonized with C difficile and ongoing diarrheal symptoms were related to postinfection IBS. Piche and colleagues previously showed that 35% of patients developed new IBS symptoms shortly after resolution of CDI (20). Patients with IBS may report improvement in symptoms after a course of antibiotics (21), making it difficult to distinguish diarrheal symptoms related to IBS from those of CDI; some patients who were “cured” by autologous FMT may have been in this category.…”

Increased Risk of Functional Gastrointestinal Sequelae After Clostridium difficile Infection Among Active Duty United States Military Personnel (1998–2010)

“…difficile have been published on the potential association with post-infectious functional sequelae and yielded results which suggested a possible weak association between C. difficile associated disease and IBS 17,18 . In one study, 23 hospitalized subjects with C. difficile were followed and only one patient reported incident IBS type symptoms after three months.…”

Post-infectious irritable bowel syndrome

“…A subsequent retrospective study by Chaudhary and Truelove found that a substantial proportion of patients with IBS reported the onset of their symptoms after an acute episode of GE [20] . Since then, various prospective and retrospective studies from the United Kingdom, North America, Spain, Korea, Israel and New Zealand have reported the incidence or prevalence of PI-IBS to range from 5% to 32% [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][21][22][23][24][25] . Consistent among these studies is the suggestion that PI-IBS is a global phenomenon, and not unique to any ethnic group or environment.…”

“…In some patients, IBS symptoms arise de novo following an exposure to acute gastroenteritis (GE). This phenomenon, known as post-infectious IBS (PI-IBS), denotes the persistence of abdominal discomfort, bloating and diarrhea that continue despite clearance of the inciting pathogen [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] . A recent systematic review and meta-analysis demonstrated that the risk of developing IBS increases six-fold after gastrointestinal infection [16] and remains elevated for at least 2-3 years postinfection.…”