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World J Gastroenterol. Mar 14, 2014; 20(10): 2482-2491
Published online Mar 14, 2014. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v20.i10.2482
Published online Mar 14, 2014. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v20.i10.2482
Irritable bowel syndrome and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth: Meaningful association or unnecessary hype
Uday C Ghoshal, Deepakshi Srivastava, Department of Gastroenterology, Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow 226104, India
Author contributions: Ghoshal UC conceived, reviewed the data and wrote the manuscript; Srivastava D contributed to review of the data and writing of the manuscript.
Correspondence to: Uday C Ghoshal, MD, DNB, DM, FACG, RFF, Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Raebareli Road, Lucknow 226014, India. udayghoshal@gmail.com
Telephone: +91-522-249-4405 Fax: +91-522-2668017
Received: November 2, 2013
Revised: January 7, 2014
Accepted: February 17, 2014
Published online: March 14, 2014
Revised: January 7, 2014
Accepted: February 17, 2014
Published online: March 14, 2014
Core Tip
Core tip: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has been conventionally thought to be a disorder without an organic basis. However, recently data are emerging to show that it may have organic basis at least in a subset of patients. Though several studies reported an association between small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) and IBS, the frequency of SIBO reported to vary between 4% and 78%. The current review suggests that the association between SIBO and IBS is definite, but the studies reporting high prevalence of SIBO in IBS over-estimated its frequency due to use of fallacious diagnostic methods. Better test to diagnose SIBO in patients with IBS is highly needed.