Digest This - Special Edition 2008 - (Page 60)

cleveland clinic Digestive Disease institute Cleveland Clinic’s Digestive Disease Institute has a rich history of innovation and research that has revolutionized the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of digestive diseases. Highlights include: 1930s Cleveland Clinic gastroenterologist Roby John Flint Renshaw, MD, helps pioneer the use of the gastroscope as a diagnostic tool. In 1934, he introduces gastroscopy to Cleveland, two years after it would be first used clinically in the United States. 1936 The Cleveland Clinic Department of Gastroenterology is formed under the leadership of E.n. Collins, MD, who came to Cleveland Clinic in 1931 as a radiologist with a special interest in disorders of the digestive tract. By 1934, his reputation as a “stomach specialist” is firmly established, and he is asked to form a gastroenterology department. 1940s Surgeon Tom Jones, MD, develops the “Tom Jones closure” of abdominal incisions using a one layer stainless steel wire closure. Dr. Jones was most noted for amassing the lowest mortality rate for colorectal surgery in his time (particularly abdomino-perineal resection for rectal cancer) and attracting some of the brightest medical minds of the period to Cleveland Clinic. 1940s-50s Charles H. Brown, MD, and Rupert B. Turnbull Jr., MD, are involved in the development of the rigid sigmoidoscope to diagnose distal colon and rectal disease. 1958 Dr. Turnbull recruits one of his former ileostomy patients, Norma Gill, as the first full-time enterostomal therapist in the world and coins the term “enterostomal therapy.” 1961 Dr. Turnbull increases survivorship tenfold for those with toxic megacolon by using a procedure he developed: the “blow hole” method of decompressing the bowel and reducing the danger of bowel perforation during a colectomy. Dr. Turnbull and Cleveland Clinic nurse norma Gill, RN, create the field of enterostomal therapy and found The Rupert B. Turnbull School of Enterostomal Therapy. 1970s – 1980s Along with his colleagues in Colorectal Surgery and Pathology, Richard Farmer, MD, establishes one of the larger worldwide experiences with both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. This would mark the beginning of the integrated Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Cleveland Clinic. 2001 The new Cleveland Clinic Digestive Disease Center, the only center of its kind in the nation, opens. The center houses both the departments of Colorectal Surgery and Gastroenterology on the same floor to facilitate multidisciplinary clinical care, research, education and patient convenience. 2000 In a landmark event, Clinic colorectal surgeon Dr. Fazio performs Cleveland Clinic’s 2,000th J-pouch procedure. 1999 Cleveland Clinic is one of the first centers to apply minimally invasive surgical techniques to ileostomy or colostomy creation. 1998 Along with five other United States medical centers, Cleveland Clinic’s Department of Medical Genetics was awarded a grant from the national Cancer Institute to fund development of a national registry of patients who have family histories of colorectal cancer. Cleveland Clinic surgeons publish one of earliest randomized trials evaluating laparoscopic surgery for colorectal cancer. 2002 Cleveland Clinic colorectal surgeons lead a nationwide study comparing traditional surgical treatment of hemorrhoidal disease to stapled hemorrhoidectomy, with promising results. 2003 Cleveland Clinic physicians pioneer the use of optical coherence tomography to further define indeterminate colitis, which comprises approximately 15 percent of patients with IBD involving the colon. 2004 Cleveland Clinic colorectal surgeons continue to report favorable outcomes in an ongoing multicenter investigation of the coloplasty pouch versus colonic J-pouch and straight anastomosis following low anterior resection in patients with rectal cancer. Results of a major study, in which Cleveland Clinic participated, suggest that laparoscopic surgery for colorectal cancer is as safe and effective as open procedures. Cleveland Clinic colorectal surgeons have one of the largest experiences with minimally invasive intestinal surgery in the country, having performed more than 1,500 laparoscopic intestinal resections to date.

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Digest This - Special Edition 2008 Table of Contents Investigations Institute Overview Innovations Staff Research

Digest This - Special Edition 2008

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