Live from ASMBS 2011: Day 1

asmbs 2011Today is the first day of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery’s Annual Meeting, where many of the country’s leading bariatric surgeons are in attendance.

ASMBS’ CME course for Sunday, June 12, 2011 was An Integrated Approach to Adjustable Gastric Banding.

Today, Drs. Jaime Ponce, and Emma Patterson, Co-Directed a course with Karen Flanders, NP and Giovanni Dugay, APN in Orlando, Florida.

There were hundreds of attendees present for the array of insightful presentations and panel discussions. The course started with an interesting teleconference presentation by Dr. Paul O’Brien live via satellite from Melbourne, Australia. Dr. O’Brien summarized some exciting new data his group has produced regarding the physiology of swallowing and satiety in band patients. O’Brien said that normally 2-6 peristaltic waves (coordinated contractions) of the esophagus are needed for one food bolus (or mouthful) to pass through the band. He stated that it is important for every bite of food to cross the band before the next bite is taken.

The next session focused on patient selection for gastric banding and included presentations by Drs. John Dixon, Jeffrey Allen, Helmuth Billy, and Robert Cywes. The latest data on banding in patients with diabetes, lower BMIs (30-35), and adolescent patients, was discussed, in addition to predictors of better responders, or success with the band.

After discussion of patient selection, the course moved on to band adjustments, and included talks by Dr. Matthew Brengman on pressure-based adjustments, and Dr. Robert Snow on intraoperative band adjustments with an endoluminal assist device called the Endo Flip (Crospon, Ireland).

The afternoon sessions delved deeper into technical issues, controversies, complications and revisional surgery. Notable was Dr. Marina Kurian’s presentation of NYU’s data on concurrent hiatal hernia repair with gastric banding.

On-going coverage of the meeting and presentations will continue here tomorrow.

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