Interactions between symptoms and motor and visceral sensory responses of irritable bowel syndrome patients to spasmolytics (antispasmodics).

Aim: to evaluate and correlate the symptomatic, motor and sensory responses to two widely used categories of spasmolytic agents in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Methods: 118 patients with IBS, diagnosed by Rome II criteria and 45 healthy individuals were studied. In the IBS subjects, pain severity, as well as the sensory response to rectal balloon distention and rectal and sigmoid motility, were studied at baseline and after two weeks therapy with either oral buscopan (20 mg three times a day, n=37), a buscopan suppository (30 mg once daily, n=21), oral drotaverine (80 mg three times a day, n=30), calcium gluconate tablets (one three times a day, n=16) as a control for oral agents, or calendula suppository (once daily, n=14) as a control for those who received a suppository.