Validation of the Rome III Criteria for the Diagnosis of Irritable Bowel Syndrome in Secondary Care

Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Microscopic Colitis: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

“…41 There were three cross-sectional surveys reporting the prevalence of MC in patients with IBS, 14,41,42 one of which also reported the prevalence of IBS in patients with MC and was included in the aforementioned analysis. 41 Finally, there were four case-control studies reporting the prevalence of MC in patients with IBS.…”

“…All three studies reported the prevalence of MC in only the 397 patients with IBS-D. 14,41,42 The pooled prevalence for MC in patients with IBS-D was 8.3% (95% CI 3.5% to Page 12 of 33 15.0%), but with significant heterogeneity between studies (I 2 = 76.1%, P = 0.02). The proportion of subjects with IBS-D with MC ranged from 3.8% to 11.5% in individual studies.…”

“…14,41 The pooled prevalence of CC in 659 patients with IBS was 2.7% (95% CI 0.01% to 10.0%), and for LC it was 3.2% (95% CI 0.3% to 9.0%). The pooled OR for CC in participants with IBS, compared with those without, was 1.34 (95% CI 0.59 to 3.02), and the pooled OR for LC was lower at 0.49 (95% CI 0.26 to 0.93).…”

“…14,41,42 Detailed characteristics of these studies are provided in Table 2. All studies used the Rome III criteria to define IBS, and all individuals underwent complete colonoscopy.…”

“…[8][9][10][11] Management guidelines for IBS recommend that a positive diagnosis is made using symptom-based diagnostic criteria, 12,13 in an attempt to minimize fruitless and repeated invasive investigation. The current gold-standard for diagnosing IBS are the Rome III criteria, 1 but their accuracy has only been assessed in one study to date, 14 and their performance in predicting IBS was modest. In recent years, interest in the potential for a missed organic GI diagnosis in patients with suspected IBS has increased.…”