1.   Previous study of colonic pressures in paediatric patients has been limited mainly to the rectosigmoid area, because of relative inaccessibility of the proximal colon.

2.   Why is it that clinical usefulness of colonic pressure measurements remains elusive?

3.   Morphology of individual colonic pressure waves has eluded reliable classification.

4.   This has the advantage of being expressed as a number and is thus amenable to statistical analysis, but it does not recognise different types of colonic pressure waves.

5.   Moreover, there was no postprandial increase in segmenting colonic pressure activity, no propagating contractions, and no postprandial transit of marker.

6.   Awakening stimulates colonic pressures, showing a link between the central nervous system and the bowel.

7.   In line with these uncertainties measurements of colonic pressures in the irritable bowel syndrome produce contradictory data and no common underlying abnormality has been defined.

8.   Consistent differences in segmenting or propagating colonic pressures have not been identified between normal subjects and patients with irritable bowel syndrome.