This consensus conference followed the methodological rules developed by the French Agence Nationale d'Accreditation et d'Evaluation en Santé (ANAES). Briefly, this required an organizing committee, a working group whose task was to make a comprehensive critical review of the literature before the conference was held, a panel of experts and a jury. All the manuscripts were published in a special issue of Gastoentérologie Clinique et Biologique [1999; 23(suppl 1)]. The conference included (a) a public session with presentations by experts working in areas relevant to the consensus questions, (b) questions and statements from conference attendees, and (c) closed deliberations by the jury followed by the drafting of conclusions and recommendations. This paper describes those conclusions and recommendations.