Frecuencia de síndrome de intestino irritable en la consulta de medicina interna y cirugía general en tres centros de atención médica de la Ciudad de México

Background: Irritable bowel syndrome is one of the conditions that we found most frequently in our daily practice. At the present time it is accepted as a syndrome of the neuro-endocrine-gastrointestinal system that can be expressed with extra digestive forms, a very wide symptomatology and it is highly associated to somatomorphic alterations. Objective: To determine to frequency of irritable bowel syndrome found at the external consult service of the Internal Medicine and General Surgery in adult patients at three centers of medical attention in Mexico City, during a period of three years. Patients and methods: Prospective, prolective, simple blind, cross-sectional study, of sequential allocation in an opened population, series of cases- type, for which we recruited 608 patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Results: From 2,925 patients who asked for consultation due to some digestive system complaint, 608 resulted with irritable bowel syndrome. Frequency was of 20.78%. Conclusions: Frequency of irritable bowel syndrome in intern medicine and general surgery consultation in these medical care centers of Mexico City, in a population attending due to some digestive disorder, was of 20.8.