Current Issue December 2011 | Vol. 40, No. 4
Current Topic
December 2011
Motility Consultation: Challenges in Gastrointestinal Motility in Everyday Clinical PracticeEamonn M.M. Quigley, MD, FRCP, FRCPI, Guest Editor
The study of gastrointestinal motility and those disorders that result from its disordered function has, for far too long, been a much neglected component of every gastroenterology curriculum. Clinicians are "put off" by discussions of motility that, in their view, appear to focus on details of gut electrophysiology, neurotransmitter function, and enteric neural morphology, while, in "real life," disorders apparently resulting from pathology or dysfunction of enteric nerve and muscle and/or of the factors that control them go ignored. This neglect has been unfortunate given rapid progress in our understanding of the molecular and morphological basis of motor activity and of the physiology and basic pharmacology of motility, the advent of new approaches to the clinical assessment of disordered function, and an ever-increasing appreciation of the true frequency and clinical importance of dysmotility, be it in relation to a primary disorder of muscle or nerve, in the patient with cancer, in the context of a systemic or neurological disorder, or a consequence of a variety of therapeutic interventions. The clinician's despair when confronted by a "motility problem" has not been helped by a very poor record in translating progress in the laboratory into useful therapies at the bedside.
September 2011 June 2011 March 20112011 - Volume 40
Hepatology Update: Current Management and New Therapies
David A. Sass, MD, AGAF, Guest Editor
Women's Issues in Gastroenterology
Asyia Ahmad, MD, MPH, & Barbara B. Frank, MD, Guest Editors
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
William D. Chey, MD, AGAF, Guest Editor
