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In 1998, the Rome Foundation Board decided to support research studies on the validation of the Rome I criteria in order to provide a stronger empirical foundation for the revision of the Rome criteria that was anticipated. A Request for Application was published in 1998 and five awards of approximately $30,000 each were made in January 1999. These are listed below, together with a brief follow-up on each of them:


Validation of the Pediatric Rome Criteria
for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders
Principal Investigator: Lynn S. Walker, PhD
Co-Investigators: Andree Rasquin-Weber, MD, Arlene Caplan-Dover, PhD.

The investigators developed and validated a questionnaire that could be used as an aid to clinical diagnosis of all pediatric FGIDs. The Questionnaire on Pediatric Gastrointestinal Symptoms was published in 2000 and was adopted for the new Rome III criteria (QPGS-Rome III version) and published in the appendix to the Rome III book. It also led to the following publications:

  • • Walker LS, Caplan A, Rasquin A. Manual for the Questionnaire on Pediatric Gastrointestinal Symptoms. Nashville, TN: Department of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
  • • Walker LS, Caplan-Dover A, Rasquin-Weber, A. Questionnaire on Pediatric Gastrointestinal Symptoms, Rome III Version (QPGS-RIII). In Drossman DA, Corazziari E, Delvaux M, Spiller RC, Talley NJ, Thompson WG, Whitehead WE (Eds): Rome III: The Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders, 3rd edition. Degnon Associates, Inc., McLean, Virginia, 2006, Pp 963-990.
  • • Walker LS, Lipani TA, Greene JW, Caines K, Caplan A, Stutts J, Polk DB, Rasquin-Weber A. Recurrent abdominal pain: symptom subtypes based on the Rome II criteria for pediatric functional gastrointestinal disorders. J Pediatr Gastroenterol Nutr 2004;39:303-4.

Validation of Rome II Criteria in an
Australian population-based study
Investigators: Philip Boyce, S. Nandurkar, and C. Burke.

The following publications resulted (in part) from this grant and informed the development of Rome II and Rome III diagnostic criteria:

  • • Talley NJ, Boyce P, Jones M. Identification of distinct upper and lower gastrointestinal symptom groupings in an urban population. Gut 1998;42:690-5.
  • • Boyce PM, Koloski NA, Talley NJ. Irritable bowel syndrome according to varying diagnostic criteria: Are the new Rome II criteria unnecessarily restrictive for research and practice? Am J Gastroenterol 2000;95:3176-83.
  • • Boyce PM, Talley NJ, Burke C, Koloski NA. Epidemiology of the functional gastrointestinal disorders diagnosed according to Rome II criteria: An Australian population-based study. Intern Med J 2006;36:28-36.

Validating the Rome Criteria for IBS:
Should an Exclusion for Somatization Disorder be Added?
Principal Investigator: Carol North, MD
Co-Investigators: Ray E. Clouse, MD, David Alpers, MD

The following papers resulted in part from this study:

  • • Miller AR, Norch CS, Clouse RE, Wetzl RD, Spitznagel EL, Alpers DH. The association of irritable bowel syndrome and somatization disorders. Ann Clin Psychiatry 2001;13:25-30.
  • • North CS, Downs D, Clouse RE, Alrakawi A, Dokucu ME, Cos J, Spitznagel EL, Alpers DH. The presentation of IBS in the context of somatization disorder. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol 2004;2:787-95.

Psychosocial Correlates of Dyspepsia, Non-cardiac
Chest Pain and Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease
Principal Investigators: Francis Creed

The following publications resulted in part from this grant:

  • • Do childhood adversity and recent social stress predict health care use in patients presenting with upper abdominal or chest pain? Anne-Marie Biggs, Qasim Aziz, Barbara Tomenson, Francis Creed. Psychosomatic Medicine. 2003. 65:1020-1028.
  • • Biggs AM. Aziz Q. Tomenson B. Creed F. Effect of childhood adversity on health related quality of life in patients with upper abdominal or chest pain. Gut. 53(2):180-6, 2004
  • • Fiddler M, Jackson J, Kapur N, Wells A, Creed F. Childhood adversity and frequent medical consultations. General Hospital Psychiatry. 2004; 26: 367-77.
  • • Jackson J, Fiddler M, Kapur N, Wells A, Tomenson B, Creed F. Number of bodily symptoms predicts outcome more accurately than health anxiety in patients attending neurology, cardiology, and gastroenterology clinics. J Psychosom Res 2006; 60(4): 357-363

Clinical and physiological characteristics of
functional distal esophageal disorders.
Principal Investigators: Yehuda Ringel and Charles Burnett
Co-Investigators: Kenneth Jones, Nicholas Shaheen, William E. Whitehead, Ray Clouse,
and Douglas A. Drossman

This study formed the basis in part for the following reviews:

  • • Ringel Y, Drossman Da. Treatment of patients with functional esophageal symptoms: is there a role for a psychotherapeutic approach? J Clin Gastroenterol 1999;28:189-93.
  • • Ringel Y, Shaheen NJ, Drossman DA. Functional chest pain of presumed esophageal origin. Arch Intern Med 2002;162:365-6.
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