What Published Auto-Brewery Cases Can Tell Us About Frequency

Bayoumy and colleagues searched PubMed and Embase for clinical studies on gut fermentation syndrome. Their search, completed in September 2020, yielded 17 case reports describing 20 patients. The cases recorded different microorganisms and clinical histories, giving readers examples of how the condition has presented.

Counting cases versus measuring prevalence

A case report begins with a patient whose experience was documented and published. A prevalence study starts with a defined population and uses consistent criteria to determine who has the condition. For a syndrome with intermittent symptoms, the observation period and how cases are identified also matter.

The review’s count gives a sense of how much published case evidence was available at the time. Because the reviewed reports did not start with a defined population, the count cannot be converted into an estimate of how common gut fermentation syndrome is.

Bayoumy et al., systematic review