Digital Rectal Examination and Balloon Expulsion Test in the Study of Defecatory Disorders: Are They Suitable as Screening or Excluding Tests?
Table 1
Inclusion criteria and extracted data.
Studies
> 25 Patients with chronic constipation (no strict criteria) Patients with no specified subtype of chronic constipation Performance of DRE or BET (in comparison to a defined physiological test) Sufficient data to calculate sensitivity, specificity, NPV
Data
Gender distribution Mean age DRE and BET characteristics Criteria for positivity in DRE and BET Comparative anorectal physiological test Criteria for diagnosis of defecatory disorder in physiological test Number of true positive, true negative, false positive, false negative
DRE: digital rectal examination. BET: balloon expulsion test.