Samuel Chey, MPH: Identifying SID in Patients with IBS-D

A new study presented at the 2021 Digestive Disease Week (DDW) Virtual Meeting found that sucrase isomaltase deficiency (SID) may be an overlooked cause for symptoms in patients with Diarrhea-Predominant Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS-D).

Data in the study identified SID in nearly 1 in 10 patients with IBS-D or functional diarrhea, where patients reported unhappiness with bowel habits, gastrointestinal distress, and interference in their daily lives.

In an interview with HCPLive, Samuel Chey, MPH, Michigan Medicine, spoke on the results of the interim analysis, as well as further research his team is hoping to explore on the ability to easier identify patients with SID.

“One thing that our team is interested in pursuing further, after we get past the final validation with a larger subset in this particular avenue, is also to evaluate the efficacy in some of the secondary alternative diagnosis methods that exist for the condition,” Chey said.

He noted that SID is generally thought of by most gastroenterologists as a congenital pediatric condition, rather than in adults, which may lead SID to be an overlooked symptom in treatment of IBS-D.

Chey also spoke on the future of treating SID in patients with IBS-D.

“If the data we are seeing as part of this interim analysis is true, that this large portion of patients that have IBS that also concurrently have SID, there is definitely an interest in pursuing this further, develop new therapies, develop new approaches to relieve their symptoms, and we are definitely seeing patient demand for it,” Chey said.