Sick bowel: stool test makes diagnosis easier
All content is checked by medical journalists.MunichAlways having trouble with digestion - that is a torture for those affected. Especially when it is not clear whether it is caused by chronic intestinal inflammation or even irritable bowel syndrome. A simple stool test from England could give patients certainty in the future.
Flatulence, bloating, nausea or diarrhea - the range of excruciating symptoms in irritable bowel syndrome is similar to that in chronic bowel inflammation. However, the correct diagnosis is decisive for the success of the treatment and the improvement of the patient's quality of life. This often means costly and invasive interventions, such as a colonoscopy. A newly developed stool test by researchers, including those from the University of the West of England, aims to remedy this.
The scientists have now published a study in which they tested their method on 182 stool samples. These came either from patients diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome or with chronic bowel disease. Stool donations from healthy people served as comparison samples.
Chronic intestinal inflammation better recognized
The result: the test was able to distinguish patients with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis from healthy people with an accuracy of 79 percent. In the case of irritable bowel syndrome, the balance was not quite as good, here the procedure was only able to detect 54 percent of those affected.
According to the researchers, this could be due to the nature of the analysis. Various volatile substances are measured from the faeces sample for the test. These represent the conditions that prevail in the intestine and can be seen as a kind of "fingerprint" of the respective disease. This is much clearer in chronic intestinal inflammation than in irritable bowel syndrome. The differentiation between the two diseases went well again - here the accuracy was 76 percent.
Inexpensive alternative
"Our work shows that a low-cost method such as measuring volatiles in stool samples can be used to diagnose or differentiate between irritable bowel syndrome and chronic bowel inflammation," said co-author Sophie Shephard. However, further studies and test runs are necessary to increase the accuracy of the method so that it can really be used for diagnostics.
Hypersensitive perception
While inflammatory processes in the intestine are responsible for the symptoms in chronic intestinal inflammation, the reasons for the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome are not fully understood. The hypersensitivity of the gastrointestinal tract has been proven by several studies. As a result, in many cases the perception of completely normal digestive processes is painfully increased. (lh)
Source: S. F. Shepherd et al. The use of a gas chromatograph coupled to a metal oxide sensor for rapid assessment of stool samples from irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease patients. Journal of Breath Research, 2014; 8: 026001 DOI: 10.1088 / 1752-7155 / 8/2/026001
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