Principal Investigator: Aziz Aadam, MD Gastroparesis is a debilitating condition that can cause persistent nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain due to delayed stomach (gastric) emptying. The inability to eat or drink can lead to malnutrition and reduced quality of life. Current treatments are limited in both effectiveness and durability. A minimally invasive endoscopic procedure called G-POEM has recently shown promise in improving spasms of the sphincter muscle that prevent proper gastric emptying. G-POEM involves cutting this smooth band of muscle—that connects the stomach to the small intestine—to prevent further spasms and to allow the stomach to empty. Dr. Cai hopes to identify which gastroparesis patients would most likely benefit from this treatment using two novel methods: EndoFLIP, a probe that measures sphincter flexibility and antroduodenal manometry (ADM), a catheter that measures pressures throughout the upper gastrointestinal tract. Her team will look for specific EndoFLIP and ADM metrics that can be used to more effectively select patients for and predict improvement after...
Principal Investigator: Aziz Aadam, MD; Co-Principal Investigator: Kevin Liu, MD Gastroparesis is a condition when the stomach does not empty correctly due to lack of stomach muscle coordination. Many patients with chronic gastroparesis experience symptoms ranging from persistent nausea and vomiting to the inability to eat or drink. Lacking effective treatment options, patients with gastroparesis are at risk for inadequate nutrition and repeated hospitalizations. Endoscopic targeted therapies including placement of a tube to allow the stomach to empty into the small intestine (transpyloric stent) and G-POEM, an advanced minimally invasive procedure to cut the sphincter muscle in the pylorus, have recently shown promise by improving gastric emptying for patients. The Aadam team intends to examine whether patients who improve with transpyloric stenting, which provides temporary relief, will also demonstrate improvement with G-POEM, which can provide a more durable, long-lasting solution. Northwestern is one of the few centers in the nation performing G-POEM and has one of the highest volumes for both advanced endoscopic therapies. This study offers great potential for significantly impacting this patient...
Principal Investigator: A. Aziz Aadam, MD From development to implementation, new medical advancements often don’t enter into mainstream usage without education and training. Introduced in the 1990s in Japan, minimally-invasive endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) has become the standard of care for not only treating but also, most importantly, curing early gastrointestinal cancers. While widely accepted practice in Japan and Eastern countries, ESD hasn’t yet gain a foothold in western countries—mainly due to lack of available training from specialists skilled in performing ESD. Medical centers with the highest volumes of GI procedures typically provide the best ESD training experiences. At the moment, most of those centers operate outside of the United States. Endoscopists with an interest in learning the leading-edge technique must travel abroad and even with the instruction they receive, usually require more education and guidance to shorten the learning curve. Interest in developing ESD programs in this country has grown: Northwestern Medicine launched its ESD program in January 2016, joining the 15 to 20 centers in the country performing ESD. Supported by a grant from the Digestive Health Foundation, investigators led by A. Aziz Aadam, MD, in Northwestern Medicine’s Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, plan to bring much-needed ESD training closer to home. By creating an original video series, they intend to develop a premier educational tool for endoscopists from Western countries. Dr. Aadam and his co-investigators, including two Japanese endoscopic experts, will produce six 3D animated videos based on real-world examples. The videos will illustrate in detail the best strategies for treating the most commonly encountered lesions in the GI tract, focusing on those found in the...
