Five clinical symposia are among the ASGE program highlights on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning, kicking off with an ASGE/AGA/SSAT Combined Clinical Symposium titled Multidisciplinary Treatment of Leaks, Fistulas, and Perforations.
Endoscopists focused on stenting may want to attend another Sunday session titled Is Less More? A Balanced View of Stenting.
William M. Tierney, MD, FASGE
There has been a tremendous increase in the number and types of luminal stent devices in recent years, said symposium co-chair William M. Tierney, MD, FASGE, professor of medicine and vice chief of digestive diseases at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine in Oklahoma City. The proliferation of new and innovative devices can make it difficult to decide which patients are most appropriate for stenting. The benefits and risks vary based on the type of stent, patient characteristics and the location in the digestive tract.
The session’s presenters will examine the latest data on esophageal stenting in both malignant and benign disease, stenting versus surgery in treating gastric outlet obstructions, stenting for bile duct obstructions and stenting to treat colon obstructions.
“These new stents allow us to treat patients more effectively, but we also need to temper our enthusiasm for stenting in certain clinical scenarios,” Dr. Tierney said. “This symposium will be helpful for endoscopists who see patients with a variety of GI cancers that often are complicated by mechanical obstruction.”
Prateek Sharma, MD, FASGE
One Monday highlight is a session titled The Future of Advanced Endoscopic Imaging. While white light imaging remains the backbone of endoscopic practice, a growing array of advanced imaging technologies are changing the ways endoscopists visualize and treat disease from the esophagus to the colon, noted symposium co-chair Prateek Sharma, MD, FASGE, professor of gastroenterology at the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Kansas City, KS.
Electronic chromoendoscopy techniques such as narrow-band imaging (NBI), i-Scan and blue light can help clinicians distinguish benign versus worrisome lesions. Volumetric laser endomicroscopy, sometimes called 3D optical coherence tomography, aids in the examination of submucosal tissue after endoscopic therapy for Barrett’s esophagus.
Confocal laser endomicroscopy gives the clinician the ability to visualize individual cells and blood vessels in real time. And a new generation of probes allows the endoscopist to combine endoscopic ultrasound with confocal laser endomicroscopy to differentiate benign pancreatic cysts from malignant growths.
“Good endoscopes and good endoscopists are the key to a high-quality endoscopy,” Dr. Sharma said. “We will be discussing cutting-edge data on where these devices and technologies stand today. And I am looking forward to glimpses into the future of how we will be using these advanced imaging devices to improve the management of patients with GI disorders.”
Also on Monday, ASGE collaborated with AGA and SSAT for a Clinical Symposium titled Gastric Cancer: Epidemiology, Prevention, Diagnosis and Management. And for practitioners who focus on colorectal cancer, the session Colonoscopy: What’s New and What Should I Be Doing will offer the latest advances in what is still the most common endoscopic procedure performed in the U.S.
Neil Gupta, MD, MPH
“Unfortunately, all colonoscopies are not equal,” said session co-chair Neil Gupta, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine and medical director of the GI labs at Loyola University in Chicago. “We will be seeing state-of-the-art techniques that we can all use today. We have new light sources, new endoscopes, new bowel prep, new quality assessment, even new techniques to engage the public and help them realize that colonoscopy is a life-saving procedure. Learning how to do a procedure that you perform on a routine basis in a high-quality manner is critical to the success of every gastroenterologist.”
Please refer to the schedule-at-a-glance in the Sunday and Monday issues for the time and location of these and other DDW® events.
And if you’d like to learn more about these topics, ASGE offers physician education videos, including the titles Colonoscopy Technique: Basic and Advanced (2nd Edition) and Diagnosis of Flat and Depressed Colorectal Neoplasms, at the ASGE Learning Center in Hall A, and at www.asge.org
