Would Renaming Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) Make a Real Difference?

Over the years, the symptom cluster currently known as irritable bowel syndrome or IBS has been called various other terms that are now outdated. These range from, among others, the extremely vague “nervous stomach” to the inaccurate “spastic colitis,” “irritable colitis” “mucous colitis” (IBS, as currently understood scientifically, is not a form of colitis.) to “spastic colon,” as an apparent attempt to acknowledge the unpredictable motility found in IBS. “Irritable bowel syndrome” is the most recent name choice, as physicians and researchers began to realize that the symptoms of IBS form distinct patterns. “Syndrome,” in a medical context, means “a group of signs and symptoms that occur together and characterize a particular abnormality.” This part of the present name is more consistent with the symptom-based Rome criteria that functional gastrointestinal disorder experts have advocated as the international diagnostic standard for over two decades. Rome III is the current version. (See page 889.)…