This book can be used as both a textbook and an up to date reference source for anyone interested in clinical care or a comprehensive review of the field. It is must reading for clinicians and researchers. In bringing this new medical knowledge from the multinational working teams to primary care physicians and gastroenterologists throughout the world, this book advances a symptom based classification system developed as a new paradigm for the diagnosis and treatment of functional GI disorders so that patients suffering from these conditions may find the promise of relief contained in Rome II.
Rome II addresses some of the most puzzling and prevalent of chronic disorders. Functional gastrointestinal disorders, including irritable bowel syndrome, functional dyspepsia and chronic functional abdominal pain, are very commonly seen in specialty and general medical practices. Until recently, there have been no scientifically and psychologically based standards for approaching these patients. Nor have researchers found common frameworks within which to study the causes and treatments of functional gastrointestinal disorders.
Functional GI disorders historically have been considered second class. Clinicians and scientists paid little attention to these disorders, leaving patients dissatisfied with their care, and causing unnecessary diagnostic procedures. Funding agencies gave little attention to the investigation of these disorders. In the late 1980s, the multinational collaboration and publication of the work of the Rome Working Teams dramatically changed this field of medicine by legitimization of these disorders, resulting in an increase in research grants, pharmaceutical studies and publications.
Refining, expanding and updating that landmark work, the authors of Rome II report on validation studies of its original Diagnostic Criteria, new findings in basic and clinical research, the new classification these disorders in children, and promising new treatments on the horizon.
