In other news: Face-to-face gastroenterology meetings unlikely in 2021; PBAC shaves four weeks off Hep C treatment; Good news for most feared adverse event in endoscopic bowel surgery

Interventional gastroenterology

11 Feb 2021

Face-to-face gastroenterology meetings unlikely in 2021

Most gastroenterology professional groups are opting for virtual scientific meetings again in 2021 rather than face-to-face conferences, despite the rollout of vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic.

GESA says preparations for Australian Gastroenterology Week (AGW 2021) are underway, with plans to hold the conference from Sunday 12 September to Tuesday 14 September in Brisbane. Registration for the event will open in March. However the US Digestive Disease Week (DDW) run by the American Gastroenterology Association is being planned as a virtual meeting in 2021, to run from May 21-23. Similarly the UEG (United European Gastroenterology) 2021 conference has been announced as a virtual meeting to take place from 3-5 October.

Meanwhile, IBD clinicians have seen the ECCO Congress postponed again and will have to wait until 7 July to attend the virtual 16th ECCO Congress. A preliminary program has already been announced.

Good news on most feared adverse event in endoscopic colorectal polyp resection surgery

The most feared adverse event in endoscopic colorectal polyp resection surgery – perforation – can be managed with through-the- scope surgical clips and doesn’t affect technical success or recurrence, a group of Australian gastroenterologists report.

The observational study included consecutive patients who underwent endoscopic mucosal resection for large (≥ 20mm) non-pedunculated colorectal polyps (LNPCPs). From a total of 3717 resected LNPCPs, 101 cases (2.7%)  cases of significant deep mural injury (S-DMI) were identified. 98 were successfully closed (97.0%) using a median of 4 through-the-scope clips.

Technical success was achieved in 94 (93.1%) patients, with 46 (45.5%) admitted to hospital for a short stay.

When the researchers compared LNPCPs with and without S-DMI, there were no significant differences in technical success or SC1 recurrence.

Two of the study authors declared receiving research support from Olympus Medical. 

Four weeks shaved off course of drug for Hep C

The duration of treatment for a combination antiviral for people with chronic hepatitis C who are treatment naive and have compensated cirrhosis has been reduced from 12 to 8 weeks.

The PBAC recommended amending the listing of glecaprevir with pibrentasvir (Maviret) to include an 8-week treatment option based on an assessment that an 8-week regimen of achieved similar therapeutic outcomes to the currently PBS-listed 12-week regimen.

Clinicians can continue to prescribe the 12-week regimen at their discretion.

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