Kathleen Doheny

2 weeks ago | medscape.com | Kathleen Doheny

SAN DIEGO — Crohn’s disease (CD) has become more common in the United States, and an estimated 1 million Americans have the condition. Still, much is unknown about how to evaluate the individual risk for the disease. “It’s pretty much accepted that Crohn’s disease does not begin at diagnosis,” said Ryan Ungaro, MD, associate professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City, speaking at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2025.

2 weeks ago | medscape.com | Kathleen Doheny

SAN DIEGO — With the recently updated recommendations by the US Preventive Services Task Force lowering the age for colorectal cancer screening to 45 instead of 50, an additional 19 million patients now require screening, Asma Khapra, MD, a gastroenterologist at Gastro Health in Fairfax, Virginia, told attendees at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2025. That change, coupled with the expected shortage of gastroenterologists, means one thing: The current workforce can’t meet patient demand, she said.

3 weeks ago | medscape.com | Kathleen Doheny

SAN DIEGO—Gastroenterologists have debated the best course of action for patients with Barrett’s esophagus for decades. Which is better for detecting early malignancy and preventing progression to esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) — surveillance endoscopy at regular intervals or only when symptoms occur? Does one offer a better chance of survival than the other?

3 weeks ago | medscape.com | Kathleen Doheny

As cases of long COVID — often defined as symptoms that weren’t present before persisting for 3 or more months after the infection — became more prevalent and alarming, researchers began to zero in on the commonly reported cardiovascular symptoms of fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain, and palpitations, among others. Long-COVID patients, much research has found, have significantly higher odds of developing cardiac complications than those without long COVID.

3 weeks ago | medscape.com | Kathleen Doheny

Is it time for universal screening for atrial fibrillation (AF), the most commonly treated type of arrhythmia that sets people up for strokes? The question is important. While estimates of prevalence vary, a recent study found AF affects about 4% of the adult population or about 10 million in the United States. More than 795,000 people in the United States have a stroke each year, and AF is blamed for 1 in 7.