Noninvasive Diagnosis of Irritable Bowel Syndrome via Bowel Sound Features: Proof of Concept.

Introduction: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common and debilitating disorder estimated to affect approximately 11% of the world's population. Typically, IBS is a diagnosis of exclusion after patients undergo a costly and invasive colonoscopy to exclude organic disease. Clinician's and researchers have identified a need for a new cost-effective, accurate, and noninvasive diagnostic test for IBS.

A mathematical model of bowel sound generation.

Humans have been interested in bowel sounds and wondered about their origins for millennia. To better understand the phenomenon, a mathematical model of bowel sound generation was developed based on a spring-mass-damping system. This is similar to vocal folds models for speech.

Bowel Sounds Identification and Migrating Motor Complex Detection with Low-Cost Piezoelectric Acoustic Sensing Device.

Interpretation of bowel sounds (BS) provides a convenient and non-invasive technique to aid in the diagnosis of gastrointestinal (GI) conditions. However, the approach's potential is limited by variation between BS and their irregular occurrence. A short, manual auscultation is sufficient to aid in diagnosis of only a few conditions.

Advances in Acoustic Signal Processing Techniques for Enhanced Bowel Sound Analysis.

With the invention of the electronic stethoscope and other similar recording and data logging devices, acoustic signal processing concepts and methods can now be applied to bowel sounds. In this paper, the literature pertaining to acoustic signal processing for bowel sound analysis is reviewed and discussed. The paper outlines some of the fundamental approaches and machine learning principles that may be used in bowel sound analysis.

Antibody responses to recombinant, yeast-derived hepatitis B vaccine in teenage New Zealand children.

Three groups of healthy teenage New Zealand children were given 2.5 micrograms, 5 micrograms and 10 micrograms, which is the currently recommended dose, of Merck Sharp and Dohme recombinant yeast-derived hepatitis B vaccine at time 0, 1 and 6 months and tested for antibody responses to vaccine and for other hepatitis B virus markers. Seroconversion rates exceeded 98% in all three groups.