Symptoms and pathophysiological correlations in patients with constipation and functional dyspepsia.
BACKGROUND
Patients with constipation often report dyspeptic symptoms, but whether constipation is associated with specific dyspeptic symptoms and altered gastrointestinal (GI) motility, remains to be established. Our aim was to study symptoms association and GI motility parameters in patients with constipation and functional dyspepsia.


METHODS
42 patients with different symptoms and severity of constipation and dyspepsia were enrolled. Scintigraphic gastric emptying, colonic transit time and gallbladder contraction were studied in all subjects.


RESULTS
No significant association was observed between individual symptoms of constipation and dyspepsia. Patients with more severe constipation did not have higher dyspepsia severity scores. Colonic transit time, gastric half emptying and gallbladder contraction were not significantly correlated. Although patients with severe nausea had faster colonic transit than those with absent/mild symptom (19 +/- 2 vs. 48 +/- 7 h; p < 0.05), the multivariate analysis only revealed a significant association between severe postprandial fullness, delayed t1/2 (OR 1.05, CI 1-1.1) and impaired gallbladder contraction (OR 0.94, CI 0.89-0.99).


CONCLUSIONS
Constipation was not associated with severity, or any particular dyspeptic symptom. Although motor abnormalities of both colon and proximal GI tract regions existed in the subset of constipated dyspeptic patients, they did not seem associated with the genesis of different dyspeptic symptoms.
Sarnelli
Giovanni
G
Gastroenterologia, Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica e Sperimentale, Università Federico II, Napoli, Italy.
Grasso
Raffaella
R
Ierardi
Enzo
E
De Giorgi
Francesco
F
Savarese
Maria Flavia
MF
Russo
Luigi
L
Budillon
Gabriele
G
Cuomo
Rosario
R
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003248:Constipation / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004415:Dyspepsia / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D005704:Gallbladder / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology; D015902:Gamma Cameras; D005746:Gastric Emptying; D005769:Gastrointestinal Motility; D005772:Gastrointestinal Transit; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D012720:Severity of Illness Index