Relationship of Age and Gender to Motility Test Results and Symptoms in Patients with Chronic Constipation

Background/Aims Patients with chronic constipation (CC) exhibit symptoms and functional abnormalities upon testing, but their relationship to age and gender is unclear. We assessed age- and gender-related differences in symptoms, colon transit time, and anorectal motility, sensation, and expulsion. Patients and Methods Retrospective, post hoc data analysis of patients with CC, who underwent Wireless Motility Capsule (WMC), High-Resolution Anorectal Manometry (HR-ARM), Balloon Expulsion Test (BET) and Rectal Sensory Testing (RST). Clinical assessment was made by questionnaires. Standard WMC criteria for colonic transit time (CTT) and the London classification was used for HR‐ARM analyses, and regression plots between age, gender, CTT, HR-HRM, RST and BET were calculated. Results We studied 75 women and 91 men. Abdominal pain, infrequent defecation, incomplete evacuation, defecatory straining, and multiple motility and anorectal function abnormalities were common. Abdominal pain was least frequently, and straining was most frequently associated with a motility abnormality. For each symptom, the highest prevalence was associated with failed BET. There was a significant increase in CTT with age only in men ( p = 0.0006). In men, for each year of age there was a CTT increase of 1.02 h. The prevalence of abdominal pain and incomplete evacuation for females was significantly higher than that for males (both P