USF Health has pooled this region’s best experts on gastroenterology, along with the specialty’s latest diagnostic and treatment options, and opened the Small Bowel/Lower GI Motility Center.
Patients suffering from celiac, sprue, small bowel bacterial overgrowth, inflammatory bowel disease, obscure gastrointestinal bleeding, motility disorders, and other chronic problems of the small bowel and lower gastrointestinal tract are now benefitting from the new center, which is based at the USF Health Morsani Center for Advanced Healthcare on the USF campus in Tampa.
“The expertise at our Center is unmatched in Central Florida and patients will benefit the most from our knowledge, proficiency and skill,” said Patrick Brady, MD, professor of medicine at USF. “In addition, patients have the huge benefit of connecting with an academic medical center, where they have access to highly specialized healthcare professionals who are specifically trained to interpret test results and offer the latest treatment options. The level of expertise in our Small Bowel/Lower GI Motility Center can only be found at an academic medical center.”
In addition to Dr. Patrick Brady, physicians at the Center include Dr. Soojong Hong-Chae and Dr. Jay J. Mamel.
The Small Bowel/Lower GI Motility Center includes expert physicians who specialize in the lower gastrointestinal tract.
Among the innovative diagnostic and treatment services offered by the Center is the hydrogen breath test (below), a non-invasive test that helps diagnose small bowel bacterial overgrowth syndrome, and common food intolerances, such as lactose intolerance.
In addition, the Center uses the SmartPill, an electronic capsule that measures the time it takes to travel through the intestines – called motility – a key determinant of many gastrointestinal problems including gastroparesis, colonic inertia, and intestinal pseudo obstruction.
“Our Center is the only one of its kind in Central Florida, and these two services, in particular, are not widely available in Florida at all,” Dr. Brady said.
Other innovative diagnostic tests include PillCam (below), a capsule camera endoscopy that allows physicians to visualize the entire length of the small bowel, and balloon-assisted enteroscopy, a type of endoscopy that allows visualization and therapy throughout all or most of the small intestine.
Among the diseases treated at the Center are: celiac, sprue, difficult to manage diarrhea/constipation, inflammatory bowel disease, malabsorption, obscure GI bleeding, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, colonic inertia, gastroparesis, irritable bowel syndrome, pelvic floor dysfunction and pseudo-obstruction.
Visit health.usf.edu/medicine/internalmedicine/digestive for more information about the USF Small Bowel/Lower GI Motility Center, or to schedule an appointment. You may also call (813) 974-4115.
