An epidemiologic survey of chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction and evaluation of the newly proposed diagnostic criteria.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction (CIPO) is an intractable disease in which clinical symptoms of intestinal obstruction appear without mechanical cause. No clear diagnostic criteria have been established; therefore, we proposed diagnostic criteria to facilitate the diagnosis of this rare disease and aim to evaluate their usefulness and validity.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A questionnaire was sent to 378 institutions belonging to the Japanese Society of Gastroenterology between December 2009 and February 2010. We summarized the returned data and performed a statistical analysis.

RESULTS: A total of 160 cases were included, and 141 cases (88.1%) fulfilled the criterion of disease duration of >6 months, 157 cases (98.1%) the criterion of the clinical symptoms of abdominal pain and/or bloating and 154 cases (96.2%) fulfilled the criterion of imaging findings. Eventually, 138 cases (86.3%) fulfilled all criteria.

CONCLUSIONS: The proposed diagnostic criteria were useful, with a high sensitivity of 86.3% for Japanese patients. Improved recognition of CIPO and practical use of the criteria are desired. The criteria should be appropriately modified by additional researchers to make them more practical and internationally applicable.