The overall goal of this project is to develop an inexpensive, non-invasive diagnostic test for the evaluation of patients with complaints of chronic abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, or alternating diarrhea/constipation with the purpose of providing objective measures allowing the identification of those that suffer from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). During the Phase I effort, metrics derived from a time series analysis of bowel sounds will be evaluated for ability to differentiate IBS patients from normals. The optimal methods for obtaining and calculating the metrics will be determined in anticipation of the development of a specific software package to perform this analysis in an expanded clinical demonstration of the diagnostic potential.
Irritable bowel syndrome is the largest single category of patients seen by gastroenterOlogists and constitute a significant portion of primary care patients, as well. It is estimated that 15-20% of the population may suffer symptoms of IBS. The enormous size of this problem, the low cost of the proposed test and the high patient acceptance of this simple test will be primary factors in a high commercial potential for this project.
