BSG Annual Meeting: 2011 event preview

The sessions will take a variety of formats and themes: a postgraduate training day; patient sessions; stateof- the-art lectures; debates; as well as the usual science – both clinical and basic – symposia and research workshops, linking science and clinical practice, with a focus on diseases of the stomach, bowel, liver, pancreas and gallbladder, from both a global and UK perspective. Presentations will cover new endoscopic techniques, progress in the treatment of hepatitis and liver cirrhosis, digestive oncology, nutrition, inflammatory bowel disease, and disorders of the oesophagus, stomach and bowel. Last year’s meeting saw the launch of a joint position paper1 from the BSG, the Alcohol Health Alliance and the British Association for the Study of the Liver (BASL), setting out an evidence-based case for establishing a joint hospital and community outreach service which, together with a seven day alcohol specialist nurse service, could result in a 5% reduction in alcohol related hospital admissions. This year, the society will be building on this report. The Sir Arthur Hurst Memorial Lecture, chaired by Professor Jon Rhodes, takes place on Wednesday morning. It will focus on functional disorders such as Coeliac disease and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), with a view to unraveling these disorders from a clinical and scientific perspective. Professor El-Omar will discuss 2010 advances. In a session on Wednesday afternoon, chaired by BSG president Prof. Jon Rhodes and Dr Kieran Moriarty, Dr Lynn Owens will outline the role of the alcohol specialist nurse in the hospital and the community, Professor Robin Touquet will discuss detection and management of alcohol problems in the emergency department, Professor Colin Dummond will call for better addiction and liaison psychiatry services in Britain’s hospitals, while Professor Martin Lombard, the Department of Health’s National Clinical Director for Liver Disease, will deliver a state-of-the-art lecture on “Reducing Mortality and Morbidity from Liver Disease”. On Tuesday morning there will be a “Clinical Services & Standards Committee Symposium”, chaired by Dr Duncan Loft and Dr Adam Harris. This will see Sir Bruce Keogh, Department of Health Medical Director, and Sir Mike Rawlins, chairman of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, examine how quality should be measured in the NHS and how to develop Quality Standards, a subject that will have increased interest for many delegates in light of the Government’s ongoing reforms of the NHS. Also on Tuesday morning, Dr Stuart Riley will chair a “Joint Pathology & Oesophageal Section Symposium” on Barrett’s Oesophagus which questions how an endoscopist should diagnose Barrett’s, who needs a pathologist to diagnose it, including the confusion with cardiac mucosa. The session will also look at optimising surveillance services and will discuss what clinicians should do in a District General Hospital with no specialist endoscopic techniques. Dr Nick Maynard will also question whether surgery still has a role in managing dysplastic nodules in Barratt’s epithelium.

Lessons learnt

On Tuesday afternoon, Dr Stuart Riley will also chair a session that highlights lessons learnt from the National Oesophago-Gastric Cancer Audit, looking at how to improve surgical outcomes, oncological interventions and endoscopic and radiological palliation. Dr Tom Palser will close the session by highlighting his experience in measuring quality of life and patient experience data. A Joint Pathology and IBD Section Symposium on Wednesday afternoon will look at the medicolegal pitfalls in IBD and how the pathologist can help. The speakers will outline how to avoid missing cancer in IBD, questioning who should get a pouch and highlighting the endoscopist’s and the pathologist’s view. The session will close with a lecture from Professor Bruce Wolff from USA, reporting on the “Surgical options for the treatment of Crohn’s Disease”. In addition, Professor Julietta Patnick, director of NHS Cancer Screening, and Dr Matthew Rutter will chair a session that focuses on the Bowel Cancer Screening Programme (BCSP), including a national evaluation, an overview of national projects, an evaluation of colonoscopy and local evaluation. This will be followed by a session that solely looks at research in terms of uptake, prevention and lifestyle factors, as well as the work of the BCSP research committee. There will also be a dedicated session on training as speakers discuss the changing face of training, focussing on examples in hepatology, colonoscopy and polypectomy while Dr Paul Dunckley will outline the new JAG trainee certification process, what this involves, as well as the next steps. A session on the morning of the final day of the event will focus on IBD as speakers question “Changing environmental factors in IBD – Should we try to do it and does it work?” looking at the impact of smoking, vitamin D levels and gut microbiota. The session will also debate whether the UK has got its endoscopic surveillance strategies in Ulcerative Colitis right, or whether more work still needs to be done. Professor Anthony Segal will close this session with a lecture on “The innate immune system in Crohn’s Disease”. A joint radiology and BSG endoscopy section symposium will cover the subject of bariatrics, on Wednesday afternoon. Discussions will include the endoscopic complications of bariatric surgery and bariatric intervention, the radiology of bariatric patients, and delegates will find out what the gastroenterologist needs to know about bariatric surgery. In light of the recent publicity surrounding the publication of the Health and Social Care Bill, the Wednesday morning session on primary care for gastroenterology, could be of interest. It will include experiences and lessons learned from a community led gastroenterology service, and will discuss the redesign of the service in the “New World.” Discussions will focus on subjects including “Clinics in the community: what would work? and the need for primary and secondary care sectors to work together to raise awareness of bowel cancer”.