Bacterial Overgrowth Syndrome Guidelines

Updated: Mar 07, 2023
  • Author: Chinelo N Animalu, MD, MPH, FIDSA; Chief Editor: Michael Stuart Bronze, MD  more...
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Guidelines

Guidelines

Only recently have well-established guidelines for the management of bacterial overgrowth syndrome been made available. Treatment has been mostly empirical and extrapolated from diseases with similar clinical presentations, including irritable bowel syndrome, among others.

In February 2020, the American College of Gastroenterology established comprehensive guidelines for the diagnosis and management of small-intestinal bacterial overgrowth. [34]

In 2017, “Hydrogen and Methane-Based Breath Testing in Gastrointestinal Disorders: The North American Consensus” was published and focuses mainly on the diagnosis of suspected bacterial overgrowth syndrome using hydrogen and methane breath tests. [35]

No clinical trials have been conducted to study more effective treatment methods for bacterial overgrowth syndrome.