Bloating, abdominal pain key in patient perception of global IBS-D symptoms
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Treatment for irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea should target bloating in addition to diarrhea and abdominal pain or discomfort, according to data presented at the ACG Annual Scientific Meeting.
“The aim of this analysis was to assess potential relationships between improvement in abdominal pain, bloating, stool consistency and global IBS symptoms in patients with IBS-D,” Kyle Staller, MD, MPH, director of the Gastrointestinal Motility Laboratory at Massachusetts General and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told Healio.
The pooled post-hoc analysis included two identically designed, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 trials of 1,258 adult patients with IBS-D who received Xifaxan (rifaximin, Salix Pharmaceuticals) 550 mg (n = 624) three times daily or placebo (n = 634) for two weeks, followed by a 10-week treatment-free period.
Researchers assessed abdominal pain/discomfort, bloating, stool consistency, fecal urgency and global IBS symptoms via daily survey scores. At screening, participants had mean daily abdominal pain/discomfort and bloating scores of 2 to 4.5 on a 7-point scale and mean daily stool consistency scores of at least 3.5 on a 5-point scale.
Using Pearson correlation analyses, Staller and colleagues reported a strong positive correlation between changes from baseline for bloating and abdominal pain/discomfort scores (r = 0.84), bloating and global IBS symptom scores (r = 0.84) and abdominal pain/discomfort and global IBS symptom scores (r = 0.92), all calculated as average weekly scores.
They also reported a moderate correlation between global IBS symptom scores and stool consistency scores (r = 0.56) and global IBS symptom scores and percentage of days with fecal urgency (r = 0.6).
“Given the need to address multiple symptoms concurrently in patients with IBS-D, understanding potential relationships between improvement in abdominal pain, bloating, stool consistency and global IBS symptoms may help guide treatment of these patients,” Staller and colleagues said.
Collapse
Staller K, et al. The strong association between bloating, abdominal pain, and global irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) symptom scores in IBS with diarrhea: A phase 3 trial pooled correlation analysis of individual symptoms. Presented at: ACG Annual Scientific Meeting; Oct. 21-26, 2022; Charlotte, N.C. (hybrid meeting).
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts