Two oral posters featuring EndoFLIP technology to be presented at Digestive Disease Week 2011

Two oral poster presentations featuring EndoFLIP technology are to be presented at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) in Chicago, starting Saturday 7th May 2011.

Friday 6th May 2011

The first oral poster, Impaired Distensibility of the Esophagogastric Junction in Patients with Achalasia and Persistent symptoms, is being presented by W.O. Rohof of the Department of Gastroenterology, Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The study concludes that in patients with achalasia, GEJ distensibility correlates better with esophageal emptying, as calculated with a timed barium esophagram, than the more traditional manometric measurement of resting LES pressure. In particular, the authors report that unsuccessful treatment of achalasia can be detected using EndoFLIP with a sensitivity and specificity of 89% and 75% respectively.

A second oral poster is being presented by M. Kwiatek from Northwestern University, Chicago, USA, titled Esophageal Eosinophilia and Wall Distensibility in Eosiniphilic Esophagitis (EoE) Before and After Treatment: Preliminary Outcomes. This is the first early study to demonstrate how esophageal wall distensibility is affected by different treatments for EoE. In particular the study once again demonstrates that there is variability in the response of esophageal eosinophelia and esophageal distensibility after EoE directed therapy. Whereas post-therapy, an eosiniphil count of less than 15 is shown to be predictive of improved esophageal distensibility, an eosiniphil count of more than 15 is not shown to be predictive of reduced distensibility. Half of the patients with an eosiniphil count of more than 15 did in fact have a distensibility improvement.

This early work suggests that distensibility measurements on EndoFLIP therefore provide a more meaningful way of tracking symptom resolution than the more frequently used measure, namely eosiniphil count.