Bret Petersen, MD, the president of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, shared some highlights of ASGE’s plenary session to be presented at Digestive Disease Week 2023.

This year’s ASGE plenary session includes 14 abstracts, said Dr. Petersen, a professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. But, “instead of pulling abstracts out of their representative focused session on a topic, we leave them in their other distributed sessions throughout the meeting.” In the plenary presentation, “attendees get sort of an advertisement and the bottom-line findings” of each abstract and then “a related State-of-the-Art talk to elucidate those topics in greater depth.”

Noting that gastroenterologists already have opportunities for procedural training at DDW and other meetings, Dr. Petersen said, “I didn’t feel like we need to touch on that specifically at the plenary. This plenary doesn’t have a single talk on how to do a given procedure, although it does have some on when to do it and when not to do it.”

One cluster of abstracts presented at the plenary covers training modalities, with one abstract on evaluating learning curves and competence in endoscopic mucosal resection and another on the use of artificial intelligence to improve quality for beginning colonoscopists. In the State-of-the-Art talk that goes with these abstracts, Catharine M. Walsh, MD, MEd, PhD, an associate professor in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at the Hospital for Sick Children, in Toronto, discusses training modalities that optimize skills among fellows and clinicians, Dr. Petersen said. “Dr. Walsh is a pediatric gastroenterologist who chairs the ASGE Training Committee and has done lots of research on each of these varied components: How should we teach what? Should we use simulators; should we use animal parts? How do you give feedback? How do you best organize a training program to the greatest bang for the buck for the most successful training?”

Another area of concentration at the plenary is quality, with abstracts on AI for quality monitoring, adenoma detection rates across systems and post–upper endoscopy cancer rates. Lukejohn Day, MD, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and the chief medical officer at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, reviews critical quality parameters to track in 2023. “This is really what should our units and our individuals in our practices be monitoring from a quality standpoint, and how should they be doing that,” Dr. Petersen said.

Another important topic being discussed more over the last several years in gastroenterology is ergonomics and musculoskeletal problems related to endoscopy. Amandeep Shergill, MD, a professor of medicine at UCSF, and the chief of gastroenterology at the San Francisco VA Health Care System, will talk about staying well during endoscopy as well as the differing responsibilities of individuals, practices, institutions and industry in this area. “Let’s point the finger where it needs to be and [determine] who needs to step up and start correcting these problems,” Dr. Petersen said.

ASGE past president Klaus Mergener, MD, an affiliate professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, in Seattle, will speak about private equity in gastroenterology. “This is a hugely discussed and growing issue,” Dr. Petersen said. Dr. Mergener is “a really keen observer of the business side and regulatory side of medicine and gastroenterology, so I’m pretty excited to hear his comments on private equity, which we’ve not included in plenary sessions or thoroughly discussed at DDW before.”

In a shift toward more clinical topics, a cluster of abstracts covers issues pertinent to management of biliary disease. Amrita Sethi, MD, an associate professor of medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, in New York City, will present the Jack Vennes and Stephen Silvis Award lecture on Acute Cholecystitis - When to Operate, When and How to Palliate. “There’s some debate about which patients should get surgery and which patients are too sick for surgery. And then, if the patient doesn’t go to surgery, how do you best palliate,”  Dr. Petersen said. “Dr. Sethi will discuss those options and provide some guidance and some data.” 

The plenary also features additional State-of-the-Art lectures and abstracts on bariatric and metabolic endoscopy, sustainability, certification of technicians and nurses, and more.

Click here to hear more from Dr. Peterson on what goes into planning the ASGE Presidential Plenary session.

—Sarah Tilyou