title: Rome III: the new criteria.
abstract: The new Rome III criteria reflects upon a more than 15 year process to legitimize, classify and bring scientific credibility to the functional GI disorders. This has occurred through a series of activities and documents including the recently published Rome III book and a journal issue in Gastroenterology published in April, 2006. The work involved has involved committees of 87 international investigators from 17 countries, 2 of whom are from China. This article will review the Rome committee process that led to the production of these documents, the Rome III classification system, a description of the changes from Rome II (published in 2000) to Rome III and information on the future of Rome Foundation activities.
authors.affiliation: UNC Center for Functional GI and Motility Disorders, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. drossman@med.unc.edu
authors.forename: Douglas A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Drossman
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D005767:Gastrointestinal Diseases / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination