Win Ho, Area Sales Manager at BIOHIT HealthCare   Helicobacter pylori infection is a common – yet potentially curable – cause of a number of gastrointestinal disorders, including dyspepsia, peptic ulcer disease, and precancerous conditions such as atrophic gastritis (AG). Fast and efficient diagnosis of H. pylori infection with a rapid urease test (RUT) during gastroscopy can therefore go a long way to help diagnose these conditions. In this blog, Win Ho, Area Sales Manager at BIOHIT HealthCare, explores how the H. pylori ULTRA-FAST UFT300 Quick Test from BIOHIT HealthCare plays a pivota ..read more

Professor Tamara Matysiak-Budnik – Professor of Gastroenterology and Digestive Oncology at the Institute of Digestive Diseases (IMAD), Nantes University Hospital, France   Our gastric cancer blog series has so far investigated reasons for late diagnosis and explored successful screening programmes in high incidence countries. To round off the series, Professor Tamara Matysiak-Budnik – Professor of Gastroenterology and Digestive Oncology at the Institute of Digestive Diseases (IMAD), Nantes University Hospital, France – delves deeper into various European research projects, describing an ..read more

Professor Tamara Matysiak-Budnik – Professor of Gastroenterology and Digestive Oncology at the Institute of Digestive Diseases (IMAD), Nantes University Hospital, France   In the second blog of the gastric cancer series, Professor Tamara Matysiak-Budnik – Professor of Gastroenterology and Digestive Oncology at the Institute of Digestive Diseases (IMAD), Nantes University Hospital, France – continues her discussion around the challenges of diagnosing gastric cancer by exploring the option of national screening programmes and examining successful examples from high incidence countries. Gas ..read more

Professor Tamara Matysiak-Budnik – Professor of Gastroenterology and Digestive Oncology at the Institute of Digestive Diseases (IMAD), Nantes University Hospital, France   Gastric cancer is responsible for over 4,000 deaths in the UK every year, approximately 54 % of which would have been completely preventable1 with earlier detection and prompt intervention. Despite this, very little progress has been made to improve the diagnosis of the disease in the last 30 years, and patients are often investigated only at a later, less treatable stage. In this series of blogs, Professor Tamara Maty ..read more

Graham Johnson, Managing Director at BIOHIT HealthCare Ltd   Bile acid diarrhoea (BAD) is a lifelong and extremely upsetting condition, and often leaves patients housebound due to a fear of faecal incontinence or being unable to find a toilet when they need one. This distressing condition affects approximately 1-2 % of the UK population – a similar incidence to coeliac disease – as well as up to one third of patients diagnosed with diarrhoea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (D-IBS).1 Despite being more prevalent than some better-known conditions of the gut – such as Crohn’s and ulcer ..read more

Faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) continues to earn itself a place in a gastroenterologist’s toolbox as a potential therapy for a range of conditions, including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and recurrent Clostridium difficile infection, with the latter approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in 2022.1 However, suppliers of FMT donor stool material – such as independent manufacturer TML.science – face the challenge of standardising what is essentially an unusual medicine that by its very nature is highly variable. Patient safety, of course, takes precede ..read more

The use of tumour necrosis factor-α antagonists (anti-TNFs) to treat inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) continues to be refined.1 Although popular biopharmaceuticals – such as infliximab and adalimumab – induce a clinical response in up to 85 per cent of IBD patients, the risk of primary unresponsiveness or secondary loss of response (LOR) to these therapies remains a prevalent issue.2 As a result, there is ongoing research to understand the complexities of the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of these biological medications.1 One of the main gaps in our knowledge when it comes to IBD manag ..read more

Dr Christian Selinger, a Consultant Gastroenterologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust   The treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has evolved significantly since the widespread introduction of biopharmaceuticals such as TNF-α inhibitors infliximab (IFX) and adalimumab (ADM). Up to 85 per cent of patients with IBD have a clinical response to these therapeutics, but many show drug-unresponsiveness or secondary loss of response (LOR), often because of the development of anti-drug antibodies (ADAs) that lower the drug trough levels in the bloodstream.1 Drug responsiveness is a ..read more

Professor Jimmy Limdi – Consultant Gastroenterologist and Head of the Section for IBD, Deputy Director for Research and Innovation at the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust and Professor of Gastroenterology at the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University.   The medical management of Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has advanced dramatically in the last decade to include biological agents, but not every patient responds to therapy in the same way. In this blog, Professor Jimmy Limdi – Consultant Gastroenterologist and Head of the Section for IBD, Deputy Dir ..read more

Magdy El-Salhy, Professor of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University of Bergen   The gastroenterology community is getting more and more excited about the therapeutic potential of faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) for a number of conditions, including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Surprisingly, however, lots of FMT studies haven’t reported a consistent set of patient responses. Magdy El-Salhy, Professor of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University of Bergen, followed his gut in a bid to solve this. He wanted to confirm his suspicions that greater standardisation ..read more