Expert faculty will offer DDW^® attendees a hands-on opportunity to learn about new and evolving endoscopic procedures for treating obesity during Sunday’s ASGE Hands-On Workshop: Bariatric Therapies.

“There are a number of minimally invasive therapies for weight loss that have now been approved by the FDA for use in the U.S.,” said workshop co-chair Shelby A. Sullivan, MD. “The goal of this workshop is to provide exposure to these new technologies and give practitioners some hands-on experience and instruction in how to actually do these procedures.”

Dr. Sullivan, visiting associate professor and director of the gastroenterology metabolic and bariatric program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, will co-chair the workshop with Barham K. Abu Dayyeh, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine, division of gastroenterology and hepatology, at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN.
Until recently, the treatment options for obesity ranged from lifestyle intervention to bariatric surgery, with few options in between.

“With these new procedures, we’re creating a new treatment paradigm for obesity that is like a pyramid,” Dr. Sullivan explained. “We have lifestyle therapy, including diet, exercise and behavior modification, as the base of the obesity treatment pyramid. In the middle of the pyramid, we have bariatric endoscopy and pharmacotherapy, which should be used as adjunctive therapies to lifestyle therapies. Bariatric surgery sits at the top.”

Dr. Sullivan said gastroenterologists should begin to think about obesity treatment similar to the way they treat other chronic diseases, such as Barrett’s esophagus and irritable bowel syndrome, using a combination of endoscopy and pharmacotherapy. And as these changes are implemented in GI practices, it’s important to educate the public and the broader medical community about the efficacy and the availability of these new procedures, she added.

“As of this year, the American Board of Obesity Medicine has started including questions covering endoscopic bariatric therapies on the obesity medicine board exams,” Dr. Sullivan said. “At least in the obesity medicine world, there’s starting to be more education and awareness of these devices and procedures. The word is beginning to get out, and I think that will continue to increase in the public as well.”

Please refer to the DDW Mobile App or the Program section in Sunday’s DDW Daily News for additional details on this and other DDW events.