ABSTRACT

Background:

We tried to understand whether or not there is a significant etiopathogenetic relationship between irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and cholelithiasis.

Methods:

Consecutive patients with upper abdominal discomfort were included into the study. Routine hematologic and biochemical tests, an abdominal ultrasonography, and a questionnaire for IBS was performed in all cases, and IBS is diagnosed according to Rome II criteria in the absence of red flag symptoms. Cholelithiasis cases were put into one group and age and sexmatched and randomly selected cases without cholelithiasis were put into the other group. Prevalences of smoking, normal weight, overweight, obesity, and IBS were detected in each group and compared in between.

Results:

One hundred and twenty-one patients with cholelithiasis were diagnosed. Ninety-seven (80.1%) of them were female, and their mean age was 53.4 ± 9.9 (27-70) years. Interestingly, 92.5% (112 cases) of the cholelithiasis cases had excess weight and obesity was significantly higher in the cholelithiasis group (54.5% vs. 43.8%, p<0.05). Prevalence of IBS was nearly equal in both groups (43.8% in cholelithiasis vs. 42.1% in control cases, p>0.05).

Conclusions:

IBS probably is a cascade of many physiological events, being initiated with infection, inflammation, psychological disturbances-like stresses and eventually terminated with dysfunctions of genitourinary tract and probably some other systems of body via a low-grade inflammatory process. Although IBS probably has a much more complex mechanism than the current view and a higher prevalence in society, there is not a significant association between IBS and cholelithiasis.