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SAN DIEGO -- More than 14,000 gastroenterologists, endoscopists, hepatologists, surgeons, and other GI health professionals are gathering here for the 2016 edition of , which kicks off here Saturday.
DDW is the annual joint meeting of the , the , the , and the .
Although DDW no longer spans a full week, it still packs in an enormous amount of new research presentations, lectures, educational courses, and social activities.
Just an example: some 4,300 posters will be presented over 4 days, as will hundreds of oral abstract talks.
A few of the major topics include:
- New bariatric procedures, some of which are completely nonsurgical
- Efficacy and safety of fecal transplants
- Trends in GI disease incidence
- Novel hepatitis C treatment regimens
- Making colonoscopy friendlier and timelier
In this latter regard, one particular study, made public Friday in advance of its presentation on Saturday, identified an important opportunity to improve colon cancer prevention and detection. It found that, among patients in the Kaiser Permanente system who had positive results from a fecal immunochemical screen, some 17% had no follow-up testing within 12 months. Such individuals showed markedly higher risk of subsequent diagnoses of advanced colorectal cancer.
The meeting will also feature sessions on practical matters for physicians. Of perhaps more than usual interest are a pair of "focus groups" to be held on Sunday afternoon in collaboration with the American Board of Internal Medicine, to discuss the latter group's controversial changes to maintenance of certification (MOC) requirements. ABIM wants to sound out practicing physicians as it considers further modifications to the MOC system.
Past DDW attendees will notice one big change this year -- replacement of the fat "agenda book" program with a digital version. DDW Council Chair Grace Elta, MD, noted that the print book was using more than 4 million pages of paper. "By excluding it, we reduce DDW's impact on the environment by saving 251,652 lbs of CO2," she said.