Irritable bowel syndrome – dissection of a disease. A 13-steps polemic.

The last 35 years (since about 1985) have produced a vast amount of scientific publications with respect to the irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), but no real progress: The etiology and pathogenesis of IBS is still incompletely understood, and diagnosis and therapy is left to the individual understanding of the treating physicians in general medicine, gastroenterology and psychosomatic/psychiatry. In this gloss, three prominent representatives of neurogastroenterology in Germany assess their own contributions and those of their colleagues and lament the huge gap between ambitions and reality in clinical and basic science in IBS.