The association between irritable bowel syndrome and ischemic colitis: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Studies have suggested an association between ischemic colitis and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) although the results were inconsistent. This systematic review and meta-analysis were performed to comprehensively examine the association between IBS and ischemic colitis by identifying all available cohort and case-control studies and combining their effect estimates together. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION: EMBASE, MEDLINE and Google Scholar databases were systematically reviewed up to June 2020. Eligible study had to be either cohort or case-control studies that evaluated whether patients with IBS have a higher risk of ischemic colitis than individuals without IBS. Point estimates and standard errors from each eligible study were combined together using the generic inverse variance method of DerSimonian and Laird. EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS: The systematic review identified three cohort and eight case-control studies. The pooled analysis found a significantly higher risk of ischemic colitis among patient with IBS with the pooled odds ratio of 2.50 (95% CI, 2.00-3.14; I2 57%). Funnel plot was relatively symmetric and was not suggestive of presence of publication bias. CONCLUSIONS: A significantly increased risk of ischemic colitis among patients with IBS was observed in this systematic review and meta-analysis.