In a changing health care culture in which patients are increasingly knowledgeable about their health and treatment options, many with gastrointestinal ailments are turning to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), including osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT). OMT involves hands-on techniques to treat somatic dysfunction or impairment of the somatic system to alleviate pain, restore motion, support the body’s natural functions, and affect the body’s structure to help it perform more efficiently.1 This article reviews OMT and its use in the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases, including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), constipation, and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).
Author: Praveen Suthrum
Hospitals and health systems across the U.S. have accelerated digital transformation efforts in order to maintain communication and relationships with their patients while promoting safety from COVID-19. Here, nine hospital digital and innovation leaders share how they want health IT to continue innovating and adapting to the pandemic. Question: How would you most like to see health IT further adapt to the pandemic? Eduardo Conrado, executive vice president and chief strategy and innovation officer at Ascension (St. Louis): IT will continue to move into the end-to-end experience space to fully integrate both workflows and data across sites of care with a…
Compared with open esophagectomy, hybrid minimally invasive esophagectomy (HMIE) — i.e., thoracotomy plus laparoscopic gastric mobilization — was associated with improved long-term survival in esophageal cancer, according to a follow-up study of a randomized French trial. The difference is likely due to decreased postoperative complications, speculated the researchers, led by Frederiek Nuytens, MD, of Hôpital Claude Huriez in Lille.
Here are 11 updates on ASC companies and industry-relevant companies to note: Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems has sold 121 hospitals over the last six years and is nearing the end of a multiyear divestiture plan, and at the same time, the system has invested heavily into the outpatient space. Read more. Harvard Eye Associates and Alicia Surgery Center, both in Laguna Hills, Calif., suffered data breaches that affected nearly 30,000 people. Read more. Reno, Nev.-based Gastroenterology Consultants is investigating an internal network data breach that occurred Dec. 8 and affected 1,974 patients. Read more. Phoenix-based OrthoArizona sold its medical office building and…
Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. Last week, Anthony Fauci, MD, said that “virtually everybody and anybody in any category could start to get vaccinated” in April. But on Tuesday, the Biden administration changed the timeline for mass vaccinations to May, June, or July. At a CNN town hall in Wisconsin, moderator Anderson Cooper asked President Joe Biden, “When is every American who wants it going to be able to get a vaccine?” “By the end of July this year,” Biden replied. “We have — we came into office, there were only 50…
The identification of Helicobacter pylori in the late 20th century and subsequent proof that it was responsible for most gastric cancers and peptic ulcer disease suggested that both diseases could possibly be eliminated. Although gastric cancer and peptic ulcer disease have yet to be abolished, it has become clear that this goal is attainable. This article reviews current approaches to the diagnosis and management of H. pylori infections.
VENTURA, Calif., Feb. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — On Jan. 14, 2021, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reconsidered the anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin as a possible treatment for COVID-19. Ventura Clinical Trials, owned and operated by Dr. Sabine Hazan, is one of the institutions researching Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine—with remarkable success.
PALO ALTO, Calif., Feb. 23, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Molecular Stethoscope, Inc., a precision medicine biotechnology company, announces publication of its human proof-of-concept study describing the stratification of NAFLD/NASH patients with clinically relevant and advanced liver fibrosis using the company’s Next-Generation cell-free mRNA Liquid Biopsy Technology Platform. The study titled “Non-invasive Stratification of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease by Whole-transcriptome Cell-free mRNA Characterization” was published in the American Journal of Physiology – Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, a journal of the American Physiological Society. The first author is Naga Chalasani, M.D., Professor of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and Interim Chair in the Department of Medicine at Indiana University in the USA. Dr.…
Childhood exposure to residential greenspace was associated with a reduced risk for inflammatory bowel disease, according to data published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology. “Intervention studies designed to target specific environmental risk factors to reduce the risk of IBD should include greenspace in study design,” Michael Elten, MSc, from the School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa in Canada, and colleagues wrote. “It is possible that by changing our immediate environment, we could prevent childhood-onset IBD.”
In this episode of the AGA podcast, Small Talk, Big Topics, our hosts are joined by Drs. Shahnaz Sultan and Joseph Lim to talk about guidelines, how to use them, best practices and how to apply them. After our two distinguished guests introduce themselves, they dive right into the guidelines and their development. Dr. Shahnaz Sultan, chair of the AGA Clinical Guidelines Committee, talks about the process of how topics are decided to go to a guideline and Dr. Joseph Lim, chair of the AGA Clinical Practice Updates Committee, dives into what goes into creating a Clinical Practice Update (CPU). They explain…