The Rome III criteria of functional gastrointestinal disorders of children and adolescents

The Rome III Classification in 2006 selected a group of functional intestinal disorders in children over 4 years of age. As in the Rome II Classification the disorders were ordered according to the predominant symptom (vomiting, abdominal pain, constipation). The current paper describes the major criteria and therapeutic approach in intestinal functional disorders in this age group. Contrary to the Rome II Classification the minimal time interval required for making a diagnosis was shortened from 3 months to 2 months. A new disorder is rumination syndrome of youth. Aerophagia was combined with other diseases presenting with vomiting to form one group of disorders, whereas in the former classification it belonged to the group of diseases with predominant abdominal pain, which seems to be a rare symptom in this disorder. Functional dyspepsia is not divided into different forms in the current classification. Functional abdominal pain was separated from the functional abdominal pain syndrome as an independent disorder which does not fulfil the criteria of other disorders with the predominance of abdominal pain. The current criteria will undergo further reassessment and the future classifications will fit the expectations of clinicians even better.