[The irritable bowel syndrome and chronic colitis--different diseases or stages of a single process? (debatable problems of pathogenesis)].

Morphofunctional state was studied of intestinal enteroendocrine cells in biopsies obtained during fibrocolonoscopy using Grimelius's argyrophil reaction, as was immune status, condition of vegetative nervous system, together with the psychological examination being conducted. Most of the systems examined showed alterations peculiar to the stage of resistance of the general-adaptation syndrome. Dependence was found out between the morphofunctional state of endocrinocytes and type of disorder in the motor function of the intestine, parameters characterizing the vegetative regulation. Statistical analysis of the results obtained showed that most of the studied parameters of different systems have come in a single-modal distribution of variants (sequences), which fact suggests that pathologic processes in irritable colon syndrome (ICS) and chronic non-infectious undefined colitis (ChNIUC) might be uniform. Based on the above results the authors believe ICS and ChNIUC to be different stages of the same pathologic process. It can be asserted, to the authors' thinking, that ICS and ChNIUC are dystrophic, disregenerative, rather than inflammatory processes, as to their pathogenetic mechanisms.