Pharmacological intervention for paediatric irritable bowel syndrome

Expert Opin Pharmacother. 2021 Sep 15. doi: 10.1080/14656566.2021.1976753. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTINTRODUCTION: Irritable bowel syndrome is a common functional gastrointestinal disorder in children, characterized by recurrent abdominal pain associated with altered bowel habits in terms of both frequency and consistency. According to change in stool consistency it is categorized into 4 subtypes. From the etiological perspective, it is a multifactorial functional disorder with both central (psychosocial) and peripheral factors (altered bowel sensitivity, motility and microbiota) implied in the genesis of the symptoms. Several treatment options, addressing each underlying pathophysiological mechanism have been proposed. However, since in most cases a combination of factors takes part in symptoms' generation, the overall treatment response rate is often unsatisfactory if a multidisciplinary is not pursued.AREAS COVERED: The aim of this manuscript is to summarize the current pharmacotherapy in paediatric irritable bowel syndrome in order to aid clinicians in treating this challenging disorder.EXPERT OPINION: Most evidence involving paediatric populations rely on open label or retrospective studies and/or are not specifically designed for irritable bowel syndrome but tend to generalise their results to mixed populations of children with functional gastrointestinal disorders. A high placebo response rate combined with poor patients' selection could account for the overall wea...
Source: Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Source Type: research