Endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) has progressed beyond diagnostic imaging to include EUS-guided tissue acquisition and EUS-directed therapies. This review provides an update on EUS-guided drainage and anastomotic procedures, and other therapeutic procedures. Today, EUS-guided drainage of symptomatic walled-off pancreatic fluid collections is the norm, with endoscopic necrosectomy as an adjunct. For high-risk surgical patients unsuitable for cholecystectomy, EUS-guided gallbladder drainage of acute cholecystitis is an option. Additionally, EUS-guided drainage of obstructed biliary and pancreatic ductal system can be performed as salvage procedures after unsuccessful endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). Bariatric procedures such as Roux-en-Y gastric bypass alter the gastric anatomy, hindering access to the major papilla. This can be overcome by creating a conduit through the excluded stomach using EUS-directed transgastric ERCP. Gastric outlet obstruction and afferent loop syndrome can be treated using EUS-guided gastrojejunostomy. These therapeutic interventions are a major advancement in the field of interventional EUS, achieving significant clinical impact.
Humans ; Endosonography/methods* ; Drainage/methods* ; Cholangiopancreatography, Endoscopic Retrograde/methods* ; Ultrasonography, Interventional/methods* ; Anastomosis, Surgical/methods*

Neurogastroenterology and motility disorders of the upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract represent a complex and heterogeneous group of conditions that involve the interaction between the GI tract and the central nervous system. They constitute a significant number of outpatient gastroenterology visits, resulting in a high healthcare burden. These disorders often occur in the absence of identifiable structural causes on routine endoscopy and radiological imaging. A more targeted approach in the assessment of functional GI disorders is increasingly being integrated into routine clinical practice, given the recent advancements in technology and physiologic testing. When used in the appropriate clinical context, these tests not only elucidate the physiological basis for the patient's symptoms, but also prevent inappropriate treatment and repeated investigations. This review aims to summarise the advances in clinically available diagnostic tools for the evaluation of upper GI functional disorders.
Humans ; Gastrointestinal Diseases/physiopathology* ; Upper Gastrointestinal Tract/physiopathology* ; Gastrointestinal Motility ; Endoscopy, Gastrointestinal

The clinical burden of colorectal cancer (CRC) is high. Population-based screening and early detection are essential to improve the long-term clinical outcome. Nonetheless, a significant proportion of patients still present at an advanced stage, including with acute large bowel obstruction. Image-enhanced endoscopy and artificial intelligence can improve the detection and diagnosis of colonic adenomas and early cancer. Endoscopic resection is regarded as the preferred curative treatment option for colonic adenoma and T0 and T1 CRC limited to the superficial submucosa. Emergency colonic stenting as bridge to interval curative surgery is increasingly accepted as a first-line option when technically feasible. Minimally invasive resection techniques such as laparoscopic colectomy and robot-assisted colorectal surgery have also come of age. These techniques reduce post-treatment morbidity, shorten the recovery process and can be cost-effective while maintaining long-term oncological cure. These outcome measures are relevant to our patients; therefore, minimally invasive approaches to curative resection should be embraced.
Humans ; Colorectal Neoplasms/surgery* ; Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures/methods* ; Laparoscopy/methods* ; Colectomy/methods* ; Robotic Surgical Procedures/methods* ; Treatment Outcome ; Colonoscopy/methods*

BACKGROUND: Over 20 million colonoscopies are performed in China annually. An automatic clinical decision support system (CDSS) with accurate semantic recognition of colonoscopy reports and guideline-based is helpful to relieve the increasing medical burden and standardize the healthcare. In this study, the CDSS was built under a hierarchical-label interpretable classification framework, trained by a state-of-the-art transformer-based model, and validated in a multi-center style. METHODS: We conducted stratified sampling on a previously established dataset containing 302,965 electronic colonoscopy reports with pathology, identified 2041 patients' records representative of overall features, and randomly divided into the training and testing sets (7:3). A total of five main labels and 22 sublabels were applied to annotate each record on a network platform, and the data were trained respectively by three pre-training models on Chinese corpus website, including bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT)-base-Chinese (BC), the BERT-wwm-ext-Chinese (BWEC), and ernie-3.0-base-zh (E3BZ). The performance of trained models was subsequently compared with a randomly initialized model, and the preferred model was selected. Model fine-tuning was applied to further enhance the capacity. The system was validated in five other hospitals with 3177 consecutive colonoscopy cases. RESULTS: The E3BZ pre-trained model exhibited the best performance, with a 90.18% accuracy and a 69.14% Macro-F1 score overall. The model achieved 100% accuracy in identifying cancer cases and 99.16% for normal cases. In external validation, the model exhibited favorable consistency and good performance among five hospitals. CONCLUSIONS The novel CDSS possesses high-level semantic recognition of colonoscopy reports, provides appropriate recommendations, and holds the potential to be a powerful tool for physicians and patients. The hierarchical multi-label strategy and pre-training method should be amendable to manage more medical text in the future.
Humans ; Colonoscopy/methods* ; Deep Learning ; Decision Support Systems, Clinical ; Female ; Male

BACKGROUND: China has made significant progress in medical accessibility and quality over the past decades, and quality improvements in gastroenterology and digestive endoscopy have been consistent. The study aimed to describe the status quo of gastroenterology and digestive endoscopy in the Chinese mainland based on the data from the National Clinical Improvement System (NCIS) and the Hospital Quality Monitoring System (HQMS). METHODS: Data were extracted from the NCIS and the HQMS. Data analysis included general information from the Department of Gastroenterology and Endoscopy centers, management of inpatients and outpatients, and annual volume and quality indicators of digestive endoscopy. Acute pancreatitis, gastrointestinal bleeding, inflammatory bowel disease, and cirrhosis were identified as priority diseases and were subjected to detailed analysis. RESULTS: Data from 4620 and 7074 hospitals were extracted from the NCIS and HQMS, respectively. In 2023, 9.6 gastroenterologists, 6.7 endoscopists, and 37.3 gastroenterology beds per hospital nationwide were observed, achieving 19,252.4 outpatient visits, 1615.2 hospitalizations (97.0 for acute pancreatitis, 146.1 for gastrointestinal bleeding, 40.2 for inflammatory bowel disease, and 111.4 for cirrhosis), and 9432.7 digestive endoscopic procedures per hospital. Overall, the quality of practice improved significantly. The proportion of early cancer among gastrointestinal cancers increased from 11.1% in 2015 to 23.4% in 2023, and the adenoma detection rate during colonoscopy increased from 19.3% in 2019 to 26.9% in 2023. Regarding priority diseases, hospitalizations increased, and 31-day unplanned readmission rates decreased between 2019 and 2023. The median hospitalization costs and median proportion of medication costs decreased for acute pancreatitis, gastrointestinal bleeding, and cirrhosis. However, it increased for inflammatory bowel disease. CONCLUSION This report evaluates the status quo and development of gastroenterology and digestive endoscopy in the Chinese mainland, providing guidance for future quality improvements.
Humans ; China ; Gastroenterology/statistics & numerical data* ; Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage ; Endoscopy, Gastrointestinal/statistics & numerical data* ; Endoscopy, Digestive System/statistics & numerical data*

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the underlying causes and clinical manifestations in infants undergoing colonoscopy, and to analyze changes in disease spectrum. METHODS: Clinical data from 180 infants who underwent a total of 184 colonoscopies at the Department of Gastroenterology, Children's Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University from January 2015 to December 2024 were retrospectively analyzed. Patients were grouped by age: ≤6 months (n=41) and >6-12 months (n=139); and by examination period: 2015-2019 (n=83) and 2020-2024 (n=97). Primary causes for performing colonoscopy, final diagnoses, and disease spectrum evolution were assessed. RESULTS: Among 184 colonoscopies, the leading causes prompting examination were hematochezia (37.8%, 68/180), diarrhea (36.7%, 66/180), and co-occurring hematochezia and diarrhea (21.1%, 38/180). Causes for performing colonoscopy differed significantly by age group (P<0.05). Colonic polyps were only detected in the >6-12 months group (P<0.05). Compared to the 2015-2019 group, the 2020-2024 group had fewer food allergy-related gastrointestinal diseases (P<0.05) but more colitis (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS Colonoscopy is essential for diagnosing infantile digestive disorders, with disease spectra varying by age and time period.
Humans ; Infant ; Colonoscopy ; Male ; Female ; Retrospective Studies ; Infant, Newborn ; Diarrhea/etiology* ; Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage/etiology*

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the role of active glucose monitoring in preventing hypoglycemia during the perioperative period of gastrointestinal endoscopy in children with glycogen storage disease type Ⅰb (GSD-Ⅰb). METHODS: A retrospective analysis was performed for the clinical data of children with GSD-Ⅰb who were diagnosed and treated in Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital from June 2021 to August 2024. The effect of active glucose monitoring on hypoglycemic episodes during the perioperative period of gastrointestinal endoscopy was analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 14 children with GSD-Ⅰb were included, among whom there were 7 boys and 7 girls, with a mean age of 10.0 years. Among 34 hospitalizations, there were 15 cases of hypoglycemic episodes (44%), among which 6 symptomatic cases (1 case with blood glucose level of 1.6 mmol/L and 5 cases with blood glucose level of <1.1 mmol/L) occurred without active monitoring, while 9 asymptomatic cases (with blood glucose level of 1.2-3.9 mmol/L) were detected by active monitoring. The predisposing factors for hypoglycemic episodes included preoperative fasting (5 cases, 33%), delayed feeding (7 cases, 47%), vomiting (2 cases, 13%), and parental omission (1 case, 7%). Two children experienced two hypoglycemic episodes during the same period of hospitalization, and no child experienced subjective symptoms prior to hypoglycemic episodes. Treatment methods included nasogastric glucose administration (1 case, 7%), intravenous injection of glucose (14 cases, 93%), and continuous glucose infusion (4 cases, 27%). Blood glucose returned to 3.5-6.9 mmol/L within 10 minutes after intervention and remained normal after dietary resumption. CONCLUSIONS Active glucose monitoring during the perioperative period of gastrointestinal endoscopy can help to achieve early detection of hypoglycemic states in children with GSD-Ⅰb, prevent hypoglycemic episodes, and enhance precise diagnosis and treatment.
Humans ; Female ; Male ; Child ; Retrospective Studies ; Blood Glucose/analysis* ; Hypoglycemia/etiology* ; Glycogen Storage Disease Type I/blood* ; Endoscopy, Gastrointestinal ; Perioperative Period ; Child, Preschool ; Adolescent

With advancements in surgical technology, minimally invasive and function- preserving approaches have become fundamental objectives of both patients and physicians. In recent years, laparoscopic endoscopic cooperative surgery (LECS) has gained increasing attention for its significant role in achieving these goals. However, a notable gap remains in the availability of evidence-based guidelines to standardize the clinical implementation of LECS for gastrointestinal tumors. This guideline is collaboratively developed by the Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor Committee of the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association, Chinese Gastric Cancer Association, the NOTES Group of the Digestive Endoscopy Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, and the Greater Bay Area Laparoscopic Endoscopic Cooperative Surgery Alliance. Through integrating the current best evidence and experts' opinions, we developed 22 recommendations on 16 clinical questions, including the LECS indications, use of antibiotics, enhanced recovery after surgery, wound suture, and surgical training. This guideline provides comprehensive guidance and recommendations for LECS, aimed at promoting the precise, minimally invasive and function-preserving treatment of gastrointestinal tumors.
Humans ; Laparoscopy/methods* ; Gastrointestinal Neoplasms/surgery* ; Endoscopy, Gastrointestinal/methods* ; China

Humans ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Constriction, Pathologic/diagnosis* ; Bile Duct Neoplasms/diagnosis* ; Endoscopy, Digestive System

Background and Objective: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer and the fourth leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide. Likewise in the Philippines, the prevalence of CRC has shown to be increasing. Colonoscopy, a screening procedure for CRC, has parameters to gauge quality of detection. One of which is the Adenoma Detection Rate (ADR). Higher ADR has been linked to improved cancer detection. This study aimed to determine the ADR and Polyp Detection Rate (PDR) among Gastroenterology practitioners in a tertiary government university hospital in the Philippines, estimate ADR from PDR, and identify factors associated with ADR. Methods: An analytical, cross-sectional study among patients who underwent colonoscopy for the years 2021 and the first half of 2022 at the Central Endoscopy Unit (CENDU) of the Philippine General Hospital. Demographic data of fellows and consultants were collected through an online form, while those from patients were obtained from electronic records. Colonoscopy details and histopathology results were accessed through the hospital’s Open Medical Record System (MRS). ADR, PDR, and estimated ADR were computed using established formulas. To evaluate the strength of the relationship between the estimated and actual ADR, Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used. Chi-square analysis, Mann-Whitney U test, and Kruskal-Wallis H test were performed to identify the factors that might influence the ADR. A cut-off of p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The total computed ADR of consultants and fellows combined is 22%. The difference between the ADRs of Gastroenterology consultants and Fellows-in-Training is statistically significant at 31.6% and 18.7%, respectively (p= 0.017). The total Polyp Detection Rate is 57.6% while the weighted group average Adenoma to Polyp Detection Rate Quotient (APDRQ) is 0.4085 or 40.85%. The estimated ADR has a moderate degree of correlation with the actual ADR when an outlier was excluded (r=0.521 (95% CI, 0.072-0.795, p=0.0266). Significant factors related to ADR include endoscopists’ years of practice (p=0.020), number of colonoscopies done (p=0.031), and patient tobacco use (p=0.014). Conclusion The overall ADR among consultants and fellows is at par with the standard guidelines. A moderate degree of correlation exists between actual and estimated ADR when an outlier is excluded; however, more studies are needed to determine the APDRQ in the wider local setting. Longer years in practice, total number of colonoscopies performed, and patient tobacco use are associated with increased ADR.
Adenoma ; Colonic Polyps ; Colorectal Neoplasms ; Colonoscopy