SSG Held  Meeting At Al Salam Rotana  Hotel 

      The last Gastroenterology Society meeting held in Alsalam-Rotana Hotel in the 30^th of December 2011, was planned to consist of a case presentation, a pharmaceutical company’s presentation and a business meeting for the members of the society.

     It started at 8 o’clock in the evening with the case presentation, which was presented by a surgical registrar from Soba University Hospital (SUH) about a 45 year old female who had abdominal pain for the last 1 year, that pain was colicky, central, aggravated by food, relieved spontaneously, associated with mild abdominal distension, she complained of loss of appetite with marked loss of weight. There are no other upper GI symptoms and the patient had normal bowel habits. Also the patient complained of symptoms of anaemia (palpitations & easy fatigability), she had many blood transfusions & no member of her family suffered the same problem. Examining this lady, she looked pale, with no brownish spots in or around her mouth, normal chest & abdomen but digital rectal examination revealed multiple polyps at the tip of the finger. OGD showed a 1.5 cm polyp in D1 with multiple polyps as far as u can see, colonoscopy revealed polyps from the rectum to caecum and capsule endoscopy showed multiple polyps up to upper jejunum. Biopsies taken from the duodenal polyp showed well differentiated adenocarcinoma and those from the colon came back as tubulovillous adenoma. CT-scan of the abdomen showed a 6x7 cm mass in the duodenum with involvement of the head of pancreas. A literature review about duodenal carcinoma & its management was presented, then a discussion was opened about the management of this lady, it was started by prof. Shakir Zein Elabdeen, the senior surgeon in SUH, whose opinion was to do Whipple’s operation & then total colectomy, prof. Suliman Salih Fedail, the senior gastroentrologist, had a bit different opinion regarding the colon as he wanted her to have serial colonoscopies & snaring of polyps. The fruitfulness of the meeting was increased by the input from Ireland as Mr. A/Rahman Nasr, a senior surgeon there, advised to do total colectomy as this is probably FAP (Familial Adenomatous Polyposis) syndrome (clinically) rather than colonoscopy & snaring, at this point Prof. Elrasheid, the president of the society, raised a question of how to ascertain that this is FAP or not? And the answer came as genetic testing & family screening, (this was the further plan for this lady), another appreciated input came from Dr. Bushra Ibnoaf, a gastroenterologist from USA, that the patient should have total colectomy first. At last, prof. Shakir finalized that by Whipple’s operation first for the frank duodenal carcinoma, then total colectomy after one or two years as both are major surgeries, but the patient will be followed meanwhile by serial colonoscopies.

      After that, a presenter from the sponsore pharmaceutical company presented a brief talk about a drug known as proton, which is a proton-pump inhibitor & its role in management of peptic ulcer disease & GERD.

     The last part of the meeting was a business meeting for the members of the society, which discussed the financial aspects of the society, the fund & the expenses. It was also supposed to elect the new directory-office this time but it was agreed that the present office had done a great job in the development of the society and the coming gastroenterology conference in February 2012 needs an active office to organize it so the election was postponed to next year.

     Apparently, that was a successful meeting and a nice close for the year 2011.