ISDE at UEG Week 2014

Written by Giovanni Zanintto

Nearly 13,000 delegates from all over the world took part in the United European Gastroenterological Week in Vienna from 24 to 28 October, by far the most attended European meeting on digestive diseases. Among the hot topics of the congress were oesophageal motility disorders, Barrett’s oesophagus and the treatment of earlyoesophageal cancer. Here are some brief comments and impressions on the meeting.

Rebecca Fitzgerald (Cambridge University, UK, and ISDE member) was awarded the prestigious UEG research prize to support her studies on the “Combination of quantifiable genomic assays with a patient-friendly non-endoscopic cell retrieval device called Cytosponge™ for management of patients with Barrett’s oesophagus”.

Two interesting sessions were dedicated to the molecular pathogenesis of Barrett’s carcinoma and the endoscopic management of dysplastic Barrett’s oesophagus. Among the new mentionable findings were Shan Rajendra and his group of Australian researchers, who reported that persistent papilloma virus infection and p53 overexpression are associated with BE recurrence after ablation. Moving on to motility disorders, there was a lively debate between Mark Fox (for) and Andre Smout (against) about the clinical utility of high-resolution manometry compared with traditional perfused manometry (and Andre Smout won!).

Just inside the entrance to the exhibitors’ area the ISDE banner and Bernadette Spitaler were well positioned. The ISDE booth attracted a lot of people who showed interest in our society and in the next meeting to be held in Singapore in 2016.

Last update: November 6th, 2014