We are pleased to announce that the detailed scientific program is now available on the ISDE 2021 Congress website!

There is something for everyone in this year’s program: Esophageal diseases’ management in the time of COVID-19, surgical techniques – how I do it video sessions, treatment of esophageal cancer, endoscopy, achalasia, gastroenterology, GERD, treatments available in low-resource settings, Barrett’s Esophagus, eosinophilic esophagitis – and that’s just the start!

Also, the 17th ISDE World Congress for Esophageal Diseases, has been accredited by the European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (EACCME®) with 14 European CME credits (ECMEC®s).

Join us September 27-30, 2021 online!

As the term soon comes to a close for some of our ISDE Board of Directors (end of September), we'd like to thank them for their service and contributions to the society. Thank you to Prateek Sharma (Past President), and Directors Manuel Pera and Edoardo Savarino. Their contributions have been invaluable in the continued development of ISDE, and in switching the Congress to a virtual platform in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. We thank you for your time and commitment and wish you all the best.

This presentation was recorded last month and moderated by Bradley Kendall. Ronnie Fass presented two functional esophageal disorders that are common, yet often overlooked, and play an important role in diagnosing and managing gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Joan Chen followed up with two cases to help illustrate these disorders and questions were answered from a live audience. The two segments are available:

Thank you to everyone who submitted a form to volunteer on one or more of the ISDE committees. We are currently going through applications and will be in touch soon.

The 15th ISDE World Congress was held in Singapore in 2016 in close conjunction with the Formula 1 autoracing competition. This overlap in events attracted a number of registrants who came for the F-1 race and stayed for the Congress. This was the ISDE’s first meeting in East Asia outside of Japan, and was hailed as a big success. The 16th ISDE World Congress took place in Vienna, Austria, in September 2018, at the University of Vienna. Read the full fifteenth and sixteenth congress spotlight.

The Diseases of the Esophagus Journal awards were created in 2018 to recognize outstanding junior faculty members and help promote professional and educational interest in the esophagus and related diseases. Congratulations to the winners below for their dedication and commitment to the field.

2021 winners:

See the list of previous winners.

Variation in the approach, radicality, and quality of gastroesophageal surgery impacts patient outcomes. Pathological outcomes such as lymph node yield are routinely used as surrogate markers of surgical quality, but are subject to significant variations in histopathological evaluation and reporting. A multi-society consensus group was convened to develop evidence-based recommendations for the standardized assessment of gastroesophageal cancer specimens. Read the full article.

In complex systems standardization prevents avoidable unintended deviations and specifically reduces error rates. In the health system there seems to be gap between rigid standardization with all its positive merits and the actual executed standardization. Standardization is regarded as the key aim in quality assurance but it is still very subjective how to reach it. Read more.

Oesophageal cancer is the sixth commonest cause of overall cancer mortality. Clinical staging utilizes multiple imaging modalities to guide treatment and prognostication. T2N0 oesophageal cancer is a treatment threshold for neoadjuvant therapy. Data on accuracy of current clinical staging tests for this disease subgroup are conflicting. Read more.

Achalasia is a rare primary motor dysfunction of the esophagus without cure. Treatment for achalasia include surgery, pneumatic dilation or per-oral endoscopic myotomy (POEM). About 10-15% of patients with achalasia will eventually develop end-stage sigmoid shaped mega esophagus. This adds treatment complexity. Multiple guidelines have recommended esophagectomy as treatment for these patients, however, esophagectomy is associated with high morbidity and mortality (0-5.4%, 19-50%). In this article, systematic review and meta-analysis, the safety and efficacy of the Heller myotomy as first line in the treatment of sigmoid megaesophagus was evaluated. This study included 16 articles, a total of 350 patients (36 to 61 years old, 74 laparotomy and 276 laparoscopy). The success rate was 0.762 (CI: 0.703–0.812), reintervention rate was 0.128 (CI: 0.031–0.409), postoperative complications rate was 0.080 (CI: 0.040–0.153) and postoperative mortality was 0.008 (CI: 0.004–0.015). These findings are comparable to prior studies; however, this study did not find direct comparative outcomes of myotomy vs esophagectomy or any comparisons with the POEM technique.

In the March 2021 issue, Qiu, S et al, evaluated safety and efficacy of treating advanced achalasia (esophagus >/= 6 cm) using the POEM technique. A total of 112 patients were included. The technical success rate was 99.1% (median tunnel length 12cm, 7cm myotomy) and the clinical success rate was 93.1% (median follow-up 31 month), 8.9% post-procedure adverse events. There was no mortality. Our institution also recently successfully performed POEM for patient with end-stage mega esophagus (type 1 achalasia) with excellent clinical outcome.

Although the current literature using POEM in the treatment of advanced end-stage achalasia is scarce; however, with increasing acceptance of POEM, future studies directly comparing POEM vs surgery in the treatment of advance end-stage achalasia will continue to provide valuable insight. Read the full article.

Visit the ISDE Literature Updates Online for more.