This interactive one-day activity will provide an update about recent and evolving treatment advances on key topic areas in GI and liver diseases and will be presented by leading experts in the field of gastroenterology followed by panel discussions. Attendees will be privy to the latest information on treatment advances, clinical trials data, evidence-based medicine and evolving diagnostic and therapeutic regimens for several of the most common GI ailments including pancreatitis, anticoagulants and risk of GI bleeding, missed colon cancers, autoimmune liver disease, hepatitis C, drug induced liver injury, hepatocellular carcinoma, IBD, Clostridium difficile, Barrett's esophagus, esophageal motility disorders, irritable bowel syndrome and constipation.

Target Audience

This initiative is designed for gastroenterologists, primary care physicians, internal medicine physicians and other healthcare professionals who care for patients with GI issues.

Educational Objectives

This initiative is designed to improve patient care by enhanced diagnosis and delivery of comprehensive care of GI issues, including recognition of atypical clinical presentations, identification of emerging and evolving treatment options for specific GI-related diseases and awareness of when to utilize specific treatment modalities to improve long-term patient outcomes.

At the completion of the symposium participants should be able to:

• Prevent post-ERCP pancreatitis
• Diagnose and treat autoimmune pancreatitis
• Treat patients with GI bleeding who are receiving anticoagulant and antithrombotic agents
• Describe the factors that lead to missed colon cancers
• Diagnose and treat patients with autoimmune hepatitis and cholestatic liver disease
• Treat hepatitis C with established and newer antiviral agents
• Diagnose drug induced liver disease
• Diagnose and treat hepatocellular carcinoma
• Describe and apply new approaches to the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease including the concept of treat to target and the use of anti-integrin antibodies like vedolizumab
• Treat Clostridium Difficile Colitis in patients with and without inflammatory bowel disease
• Summarize recent advances in the diagnosis and treatment of Barrett’s esophagus
• Summarize the impact of recent advances in high resolution manometry on the classification of esophageal diseases
• Identify surgical approaches for esophageal disorders.
• Describe current state-of-the-art for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome and constipation

About Us

The UC San Diego Division of Gastroenterology strives to be nationally recognized through its faculty as well as innovations that will improve the care of patients with gastrointestinal and liver diseases nationwide. The mission of the UC San Diego Division of Gastroenterology is to provide the best clinical care to those afflicted with gastrointestinal and liver diseases, investigate at the clinical and basic levels the best way to improve those diseases, and educate trainees on how to best approach the care of patients with those diseases.