Management and pathophysiology of functional gastrointestinal disorders

Since 2005, every annual meeting of the Japanese Gastroenterological Association has included a core symposium for functional gastrointestinal disorders. At the 6th annual meeting, the core symposium was 'Pathophysiology and New Treatment'. At the 7th annual meeting, the core symposium was 'Pathophysiology and Motility'. This review summarizes the papers presented at these meetings. At the 6th meeting, we recognized that Japanese researchers successfully produced and developed many agents that are safe and effective for the treatment of functional gastrointestinal disorders, such as 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor-associated compounds, lubiprostone, Japanese herbal medicine, and other drugs. Data were validated from a clinical as well as an experimental viewpoint. Findings included the effects of sumatriptan and nizatidine, acylated or des-acylated ghrelin, T-cell-activating anti-CD3 antibody, and transient receptor potential vanilloid-1. At the 7th meeting, not only functional dyspepsia and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), but also non-erosive esophageal reflux disease (NERD) and chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction were actively discussed from a motility viewpoint, including papers about sham feeding and gastric motility, genetic polymorphism and motility, the role of transient receptor potential A1 on gastric accommodation, esophageal motility and NERD, diagnosis and treatment of chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction, immunological basis of motility in IBS, developing non-invasive colonic function test, and fecal distribution in IBS patients.