Gastroparesis is a debilitating progressive disease that significantly impacts a patient's life with limited and challenging treatments available. Although the pathogenesis is multifactorial, pylorospasm is believed to have a major underlying role. Several therapeutic interventions directed to the pylorus have been developed over the last decade, including intra-pyloric injections of botulinum toxin, transpyloric stenting, and surgical pyloroplasty. All of these treatment options had limited and disappointing results. More recently, gastric peroral endoscopic myotomy (G-POEM) has been reported as a treatment for refractory gastroparesis. In this review article, we provide an overview on gastroparesis with a focus on the therapeutic interventions. In addition, we provide a literature summary and pool analysis of the clinical efficacy, scintigraphic efficacy, and safety profile of all studies that evaluated G-POEM in gastroparesis. Overall, seven studies have reported on the use of G-POEM in gastroparesis, and the pooled analysis of these studies showed a technical success of 100%, with clinical efficacy as assessed by the Gastroparesis Cardinal Symptoms Index of 81.5%, gastric emptying scintigraphy normalization in approximately 55.5% of the cases, perioperative complications in 7.6%, and intraoperative complications in 6.6%. This suggests that G-POEM is a new promising therapeutic intervention for the treatment of gastroparesis with durable effect and limited potential adverse events.
Keywords: efficacy; gastroparesis; myotomy; safety.
© 2018 Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Foundation and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.