This past week, on August 5, the American College of Gastroenterology Task Force on Functional Bowel Disorders, publicly released the 2014 ACG evidence-based systematic review on the management of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC), also known as functional constipation. The last such review was in 2009. The updated review was issued as a monograph supplement to the August 2014 issue of The American Journal of Gastroenterology. The full 25 page text in PDF format is accessible at the above link.
The task force included eight leading expert clinicians and researchers of functional gastrointestinal disorders from various academic research centers in the United States and Canada. The chair was Eamonn Quigley MD, FRCP, FACG of Houston, Methodist Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical College. Other members were Brian Lacy, MD, PhD, FACG, of Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, Anthony Lembo, MD of Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess…