14 WORLD GASTROENTEROLOGY NEWS FEBRUARY 2017 Editorial | Expert Point of View | Gastro 2016: EGHS-WGO | WDHD News | WGO & WGOF News | WGO Global Guidelines | Calendar of Events WDHD 2016: Irritable bowel syndrome in Jordan Waseem T.Y. Hamoudi MD Consultant Internal Medicine Consultant Gastroenterology & Hepatology Head of Internal Medicine Department - Al Bashir Hospital Amman, Jordan Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is the most common gastrointestinal disorder diagnosed in clinical practice all over the world. Because there is no biological marker to confirm the di-agnosis, IBS has remained a challenge for clinicians and patients alike for decades. Its prevalence is estimated to be between 10% and 15% in Western countries 1 and between 5% and 10% in Asia2. In some of those patients, a hidden pathology such as celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, or micro-scopic colitis may still be present and relevant investigations should be car-ried out when appropriate. Irritable bowel syndrome is thought to be a major health problem among the Jordanian people. It is estimated that around 25% of patients referred to GI clinics have symptoms of IBS, but there are no statistical represen-tative data that can confirm those claims. The US Census Bureau’s Population Estimates in 2004 showed that there are more than 100.000 Jordanian people with IBS (extrapolated statis-tics) with a lifetime risk of irritable bowel syndrome of around 30% of people3. A study that was published in 2006 by Harfoushi showed that around 70% of female patients in the studied specimen had the diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome, and he explained the high incidence among females because of social restrictions. Also IBS symptoms was most seen in high income female patients4. In another study by Jadalah published in 2007 he found that around 3.23% of patients diagnosed with IBS previ-ously had undiagnosed celiac disease and those numbers are similar to the international data.5 Children in Jordan with functional abdominal pain were investigated also, Al Tamimi et al confirmed in a study that was published in 2014 that One of four children between the ages of 11 and 15 years had IBS symp-toms and they were predominantly females.6 Given the above mentioned figures, it is clear that Jordan has problems with irritable bowel syndrome but it is underestimated and neglected by most of the physicians. In 2016, celebrating the WGO day of awareness with the topic of ir-ritable bowel syndrome, the Jordanian Society of Gastroenterology and Hepatology seized this occasion to emphasize and highlight the problem of IBS. Three main activities with the topic of irritable bowel syndrome were organized and sponsored by the Jordanian Society of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in association with pharmaceutical companies and under the patronage of the World Gastroen-terology Association. The first event in July was lectures given by gastroenterologists to the in-ternal medicine physicians and family medicine physicians with emphasis on the symptoms of the disease, diagno-sis, differential diagnosis of IBS, the importance of celiac disease exclu-sion and strategies for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome. Those two lectures had a very good impact Attendees at the WDHD event in Jordan
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