Purpose: Evidence indicates that irritable bowel syndrome can occur after gastroenteritis. However, little is known about its incidence after diverticulitis. This study was designed to identify the incidence and risk factors of irritable bowel syndrome after diverticulitis in Korea.
Methods: A survey regarding irritable bowel syndrome was performed in patients allocated to the cases hospitalized for acute diverticulitis and controls hospitalized for non-gastrointestinal disorders between January 2007 and June 2012. Patients meeting criteria for irritable bowel syndrome before hospitalization or with a history of bowel resection were excluded for analysis. Response rate of telephone interviews was 28.1 % (139 of 494) and 73.3 % (220 of 300) in cases and controls, respectively. After exclusion, 102 patients in the cases and 205 patients in the controls were analyzed.
Results: At 31 months median follow-up, irritable bowel syndrome had developed in 13 patients (12.8 %) in the cases and 11 patients (5.4 %) in the controls with significant statistical difference (p = 0.02). No clinical difference was seen between the two groups. No clinical factor was significant for the development of irritable bowel syndrome after diverticulitis, and no independent factor was associated with the development of irritable bowel syndrome. Among the 13 patients who developed post-diverticulitis irritable bowel syndrome, the diarrhea-predominant type (53.9 %) was most common.
Conclusion: A higher incidence of irritable bowel syndrome after diverticulitis was evident in this study. However, no clinical feature for prediction of its development after diverticulitis was found. Further large-scale analysis will be needed to generalize this result.