Small intestinal microbial dysbiosis

Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth has been implicated in symptoms associated with irritable bowel syndrome and other GI disease and these patients are often treated with antibiotics. However, the response rate remains poor. The current standard for diagnosis is based on culture-based methods and does not provide qualitative information on the small intestinal microbiome. We aimed to characterize the small bowel microbiome using next generation sequencing and compare it to routine culture-based methods employed in the microbiology lab. We also compared the small bowel microbiome of symptomatic GI disease patients to that of healthy subjects.