Family history of irritable bowel syndrome is the major determinant of persistent abdominal complaints in young adults with a history of pediatric recurrent abdominal pain.

AIM: To assess the late outcome of teen-agers with a previous history of recurrent abdominal pain (RAP) or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

METHODS: A group of 67 children with RAP referred to the department from January 1986 to December 1995 was followed up between 5 and 13 years after the initial diagnosis by means of a structured telephone interview. We hypothesized that those patients with persistent adult IBS-like symptoms would be significantly more likely to report a family history of IBS in comparison with adults with no persistent abdominal complaint.

RESULTS: Out of the 52 trackable subjects, 15 were found to present IBS-like symptoms at follow-up (29%) whereas the majority (37 subjects) did not. Subjects with IBS-like symptoms were almost three times more likely to present at least one sibling with similar symptoms compared to subjects not complaining (40.0% vs 16.0%), respectively (P < 0.05 at Student t test). Subjects with IBS-like symptoms also reported a higher prevalence of extra-intestinal symptoms, such as back pain, fibromyalgia, headache, fatigue and sleep disturbances.

CONCLUSION: The study confirms previous observations indicating that pediatric RAP can predict later development of IBS. The latter appears to be greatly influenced by intrafamilial aggregation of symptoms, possibly through the learning of a specific illness behavior.