Hi Scott!
Fantastic lecture! I had some thoughts and questions that came up during the topic.
1. I don’t have endoscopy in my practice. It is available on a referral basis however only 5-10% of my clients can afford referral and there is currently a 3-4 week wait for a non urgent medicine referral in my town. With this in mind, would faecal occult blood be a reasonable test to run where I am suspicious of occult GIT ulceration? What are your thoughts on the Alicam – I’ve never used it due to the cost mainly but would you consider this a viable alternative to endoscopy (obviously can’t biopsy the lesions with an Alicam). Finally, do you have a diagnostic preference for the full thickness biopsies one can do through a laparotomy, vs more superficial endoscopic biopsies.
2. CPLI: I stopped running this test years ago after the study that showed it can be positive in all sorts of cases of GIT inflammation, not just pancreatitis. I was under the impression that ultrasound was the gold standard for pancreatitis diagnosis – will you be covering this in a future lecture?
Thank you for your thoughts, looking forward to the next lecture 🙂
