Can serum level of prolactine be a predictor of the diagnoses of irritabl bowel syndrome?

Abstract

Background: To determine serum prolactin levels in IBS patients and to investigate the relationship between C-IBS and D-IBS patients and healty control group PRL levels.
Method: In the present study, 100 patients diagnosed with IBS and 100 healthy individuals who visited the hospital for routine check-up were included. IBS was diagnosed based on the Rome III criteria, and patients with IBS-C, patients with IBS-D and healthy controls were classified into groups 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Fasting venous blood samples were collected from all the participants between 08:00–10:00 a.m. to determine their serum PRL levels.
Results: Of the total participants, 28 (14.0%) were excluded, and the remaining 82 (47.7%) healthy controls and 90 (52.3%) patients with IBS were included in the study. Mean serum PRL levels were 10.47 ± 5.15 ng/ml, 14.33±5.10 ng/ml, 7.38±2.36 ng/ml and 12.17 ± 5.36 ng/ml in patients with all IBS, group 1, group 2 and group 3, respectively (p ˂ 0.05). Mean serum PRL level of group 1 was significantly higher than that of group 2 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 4.626–9.267; p ˂ 0.001).
Conclusion: A statistically significant correlation was observed between serum PRL levels and presence of IBS. Thus, serum PRL level can be possibly used as a low-cost and feasible marker for the diagnosis of IBS, despite the low sensitivity and specificity. Furthermore, future studies demonstrating an improvement in the symptoms of IBS with treatments targeting serum PRL levels will be exciting.

Keywords

• Irritable bowel syndrome,prolactin

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