Gastroenterologists concerned over the management of anticoagulant and antiplatelet drugs during gastrointestinal (GI) procedures now have new guidance in the first set of recommendations to be published in more than 5 years.
Author: Praveen Suthrum
A next-generation ink for endoscopic tattooing of the colon diffuses less and is more “biocompatible” than existing inks, which could help identify complex colonic polyps or tumors for removal. (American Chemical Society) Positive topline data from a phase III study showed etrasimod, an investigational selective sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) receptor modulator, achieved improvements in clinical remission for patients with moderate to severe active ulcerative colitis (UC), drugmaker Pfizer announced.
Metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) increases risk for colorectal cancer (CRC), particularly in individuals with liver fibrosis, according to a study published in Clinical and Translational Gastroenterology.
A fecal immunochemical test (FIT) conducted 2 years apart could form the basis for population-based colorectal cancer screening if this approach goes on to show a mortality benefit, according to a preliminary analysis. Researchers are investigating the effect of this timeframe of FIT screening as well as a single colonoscopy on colorectal cancer incidence and mortality as the primary endpoints of a randomized controlled trial called SCREESCO. Both were compared to a control of no intervention.
Medicare patients receiving self-injectable or oral medications are not eligible for co-pay assistance programs through pharmaceutical companies because of federal rules. For non-Medicare patients, these programs reduce the co-pay costs to as low as $5 per month. Medicare patients are able to receive infusions like infliximab and vedolizumab at no cost. However, any self-injectable or oral agent can carry a co-pay of over $1,000. Other than for patients meeting income-based eligibility requirements (e.g., below the poverty line), these treatments become prohibitively expensive. Thousands of patients have had to discontinue their self-injectable and/or oral medications because of this cost or have…
AGA has released a new Clinical Practice Update in the March issue of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology providing best practice advice for the management of medically refractory gastroparesis. In the new AGA Clinical Practice Update on Management of Medically Refractory Gastroparesis: Expert Review, Drs. Brian E. Lacy, Jan Tack and C. Prakash Gyawali provide guidance to assist in managing your patients with foregut symptoms attributed to gastroparesis, noting that a diagnosis of refractory gastroparesis requires persistent symptoms in the context of reliably established emptying delay.
In this episode, David Hachuel joins us to chat about his experience founding two companies to help patients with IBS regain control over their symptoms. Tips for Medtech entrepreneurs, grad students, physicians on how to translate innovation into startups into products.
CHICAGO, March 31, 2022 – SonarMD, a leading care coordination company specializing in digestive health, today announced new data revealing the success of its value-based program. To date, SonarMD has enrolled over 85% of eligible members across multiple major Blues’ plans. SonarMD has also sustained engagement at a rate far higher than the industry average: Two-thirds of patients enrolled in the program stayed actively engaged over the course of a full year. The company attributes its high patient engagement rates to its focus on strengthening, notdisintermediating, the doctor-patient relationship.
A vibrating wearable device helped people with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) stay positioned on their left side while sleeping, alleviating nighttime reflux symptoms compared with sham treatment, a small, randomized study suggests. People often report having more reflux symptoms when sleeping on their right side, and experimental studies suggest that sleeping on the right side is associated with higher esophageal acid exposure time and slower esophageal acid clearance compared with sleeping on the left side, the authors wrote.
Michael Wallace, MD, chief of gastroenterology and hepatology at Mayo Clinic/Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City in Abu Dhabi, spoke with Becker’s to discuss the future of tech in gastroenterology. Editor’s note: This was edited lightly for clarity and brevity. Question: Where is GI tech headed? Dr. Michael Wallace: Everything we look at through an endoscope is now being applied through an [artificial intelligence] lens. The polyp detection is the most obvious application of that — it’s the low-hanging fruit. What we’re going to see quite rapidly now is AI applied to everything else that we look at. You see something that looks red to…