Antihistamines in the Treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome With Diarrhea

Summary

Irritable bowel syndrome is a functional disorder of the gastrointestinal tract diagnosed with the Rome criteria. The Rome IV criteria are based on abdominal pain symptoms and stool habits including stool frequency and stool forms \[1\]. They define 3 main subtypes based on symptoms: 1) IBS with diarrhea; 2) IBS with constipation: and 3) mixed symptoms of constipation and diarrhea. The IBS with diarrhea (IBS-D) subtype has the highest prevalence. Currently, treatment of IBS-D includes antidiarrheals, bile acid sequestrants, antispasmodics, tricyclic antidepressants, and FODMAP diet. However, many patients are intolerant or unresponsive to the above treatments. Outside of IBS, chronic diarrhea affects about 5% of adults. We have described a syndrome in a subset of IBS patients presenting with post prandial diarrhea, flushing and dermatographia whose symptoms are prevented by pre-treatment with combined H1 and H2 antihistamines \[2\]. However, the prevalence of this syndrome among the IBS + D patients is not known nor have the clinical characteristics or predictors of antihistamine responsive IBS + D been defined.

Timeline

Start

2020-02-01

Primary completion

2026-08-31

Completion

2026-08-31

Outcome

Outcome not reported

Stopped (Business): “no funding for clinical research space”

Publications

• Background Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders and the Rome IV process. In: Drossman DA, Chang L, Chey WD, Kellow J, Tack J, Whitehead WE, editors. Rome IV functional gastrointestinal disorders: disorders of gut-brain interaction.
• Background Hassoun Y, Stevenson MR, Bernstein DI. Idiopathic postprandial diarrhea responsive to antihistamines. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2019 Oct;123(4):407-409. doi: 10.1016/j.anai.2019.06.022. Epub 2019 Jul 3. No abstract available.
• Background Mlynek A, Vieira dos Santos R, Ardelean E, Weller K, Magerl M, Church MK, Maurer M. A novel, simple, validated and reproducible instrument for assessing provocation threshold levels in patients with symptomatic dermographism. Clin Exp Dermatol. 2013 Jun;38(4):360-6; quiz 366. doi: 10.1111/ced.12107.
• Background Patrick DL, Drossman DA, Frederick IO, DiCesare J, Puder KL. Quality of life in persons with irritable bowel syndrome: development and validation of a new measure. Dig Dis Sci. 1998 Feb;43(2):400-11. doi: 10.1023/a:1018831127942.
• Background McHugh KR, Swamy GK, Hernandez AF. Engaging patients throughout the health system: A landscape analysis of cold-call policies and recommendations for future policy change. J Clin Transl Sci. 2018 Dec;2(6):384-392. doi: 10.1017/cts.2019.1.
• Background Francis CY, Morris J, Whorwell PJ. The irritable bowel severity scoring system: a simple method of monitoring irritable bowel syndrome and its progress. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 1997 Apr;11(2):395-402. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2036.1997.142318000.x.
• Background Passos MC, Lembo AJ, Conboy LA, Kaptchuk TJ, Kelly JM, Quilty MT, Kerr CE, Jacobson EE, Hu R, Friedlander E, Drossman DA. Adequate relief in a treatment trial with IBS patients: a prospective assessment. Am J Gastroenterol. 2009 Apr;104(4):912-9. doi: 10.1038/ajg.2009.13. Epub 2009 Mar 17.
• Background Gordon S, Ameen V, Bagby B, Shahan B, Jhingran P, Carter E. Validation of irritable bowel syndrome Global Improvement Scale: an integrated symptom end point for assessing treatment efficacy. Dig Dis Sci. 2003 Jul;48(7):1317-23. doi: 10.1023/a:1024159226274.
• Background B O'Neil, Some useful moment results in sampling problems. American Statistician Volume 69, Issue 4, 2014

Drugs

Indications