Latest Clinical & Research News
Specialty: Gastroenterology & GI Surgery
Scott Alan Shikora, MD, FACS, FASMBS, director of the Center for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, was recently named president-elect of the International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders (IFSO). Dr. Shikora’s official appointment will begin in July at the 25th IFSO World Congress in Miami. He is the first Brigham physician to serve as President of IFSO.
Appendiceal cancers are rare, with an estimated 1,500 people diagnosed per year in the United States. The rarity of these cancers and their diverse manifestations can make accurate diagnosis challenging.
Over the past decade, Brigham and Women’s Hospital has led the way in investigating fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). The FMT Program at the Brigham was the first to conduct clinical trials on FMT for the treatment of primary sclerosing cholangitis and, most recently, obesity.
For three decades, the Endoscopy Center in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endoscopy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital has been pioneering advanced endoscopic techniques.
Can insulin be given to patients without injection through the skin? This is the problem that Brigham and Women’s gastroenterologist, C. Giovanni Traverso, MD, PhD, is trying to solve. Daily injections require training and can be painful for patients living with diabetes. As a result, physicians may hesitate to prescribe insulin for years—despite its immense therapeutic value—selecting alternatives that may not work as well but which can be taken orally instead.
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Brigham and Women’s Hospital is developing new ways to resect or biopsy intraabdominal tumors by incorporating cutting-edge imaging technology within the operating room. Specifically, the Brigham’s state-of-the-art Advanced Multimodality Image Guided Operating (AMIGO) suite—a 5,700-square-foot operating room that integrates an array of advanced imaging technologies—allows physicians to more easily identify and more accurately biopsy or resect lesions in the mesentery of the bowel and retroperitoneum.
In 2017, nearly 700,000 robotic-assisted procedures were performed in the United States. Robotic surgery is fast becoming the preferred method for procedures in gynecological, thoracic, urologic, colon and rectal surgery. Today, a wide range of colorectal problems can be treated with robotic surgery.
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Absent of a cure for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), physicians at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have pioneered a broader approach to improving the health of patients with ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s by focusing on lifestyle, health education and psychosocial aspects of disease.
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Over the past two decades, the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center (DF/BWCC) has become a national leader in the care of patients with hereditary gastrointestinal cancers, from Lynch syndrome to polyposis syndromes.
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For 26 years, the Center for Pancreatic Disease at Brigham and Women’s Hospital has been at the forefront of providing care for patients with pancreatic diseases. The Center’s three medical pancreatologists, who include Peter A. Banks, MD, Julia Y. McNabb-Baltar, MD, MPH, and David X. Jin, MD, MPH, work collaboratively with interventional radiologists, gastrointestinal surgeons and therapeutic endoscopists to provide the latest diagnostic and treatment options for acute and chronic pancreatitis, pancreatic cysts, hormone-producing tumors and cancer.