Department of Internal Medicine, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
J Korean Med Sci. 2013 Jun;28(6):901-7. doi: 10.3346/jkms.2013.28.6.901. Epub 2013 Jun 3.
Whether hydrogen and methane gas produced during lactulose breath test (LBT) are associated with symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is not determined. We aimed to investigate whether hydrogen and methane on LBT are associated with IBS symptoms. Sixty-eight IBS patients meeting the Rome III criteria for IBS, and 55 healthy controls, underwent LBT. The IBS subjects recorded their customary gastrointestinal symptoms on a questionnaire using visual analogue scales. LBT positivity was defined to be above 20 ppm rise of hydrogen or 10 ppm rise of methane within 90 min. Gas amounts produced during LBT were determined by calculating area under the curve of hydrogen and methane excretion. Symptom severity scores were not different between the LBT (+) IBS and LBT (-) IBS subjects and also between methane producers and non-methane producers. Gas amounts produced during LBT were not associated with IBS symptoms, except a weak correlation between total gas amounts and a few IBS symptoms such as bloating (r = 0.324, P = 0.039), flatulence (r = 0.314, P = 0.046) and abdominal pain (r = 0.364, P = 0.018) only in LBT (+) IBS. In conclusion, hydrogen and methane gas on LBT are not useful for predicting the customary symptoms and subtypes of IBS.
乳果糖呼气试验（LBT）中产生的氢气和甲烷是否与肠易激综合征（IBS）的症状有关尚未确定。我们旨在研究 LBT 中的氢气和甲烷是否与 IBS 症状有关。68 例符合 IBS 罗马 III 标准的 IBS 患者和 55 例健康对照者接受了 LBT。IBS 患者使用视觉模拟量表在问卷上记录他们的胃肠道症状。LBT 阳性定义为 90 分钟内氢气升高 20 ppm 以上或甲烷升高 10 ppm 以上。通过计算氢气和甲烷排泄的曲线下面积来确定 LBT 期间产生的气体量。LBT（+）IBS 和 LBT（-）IBS 受试者以及甲烷产生者和非甲烷产生者之间的症状严重程度评分无差异。LBT 期间产生的气体量与 IBS 症状无关，但总气体量与腹胀（r = 0.324，P = 0.039）、气胀（r = 0.314，P = 0.046）和腹痛（r = 0.364，P = 0.018）等少数 IBS 症状之间存在弱相关性，仅在 LBT（+）IBS 中。总之，LBT 中的氢气和甲烷对预测 IBS 的常见症状和亚型没有帮助。
