The meaning of terms like "malabsorption" and "malabsorption syndrome" has remained unchanged for the last forty years. By malabsorption we still indicate the defective passage of end products of normal digestion through the intestinal mucosa; by malabsorption syndrome, the complex of symptoms secondary to malabsorption, i.e. diarrhoea, steatorrhoea, weight loss, stunted growth, anaemia, fatigue, abdominal pain, bloating and flatulence [1]. Nevertheless, the nosology and diagnostic approach to malabsorption have somewhat changed, and the interest in studying this condition seems to have waned. Indeed, the number of articles dealing with malabsorption published in the last decade has fallen by more than half compared with those published in the 1970s and, unlike in other fields of medicine, no new functional tests have appeared. Moreover, time-honoured and traditional malabsorption tests, including blood/urinary xylose test, faecal fat microscopy and measurement, oxalate loading test, ~(14)C oleic acid/triolein breath test, hydrogen breath tests and lactulose/mannitol test, are requested less and less, some even having disappeared from the algorithm of a number of malabsorption disorders.
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