Digestive Disease Week 2024 kicks off this weekend and will feature what organizers say are the best science and clinical advancements in gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and surgery.

The conference will host more than 400 educational sessions and more than 3,000 research abstracts. DDW will take place in Washington, D.C., and online from May 18-21, 2024.

DDW is jointly sponsored by four medical societies: AASLD, AGA, ASGE and SSAT.

Also on display will be the world’s first therapeutic single-use gastroscope — one that’s partially made from bioplastic materials. The Ambu® aScope™ Gastro Large, from Ambu A/S, was recently granted 510(K) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and sports a 4.2 mm working channel, a bigger size that increases suction for treating patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding.

One study will focus on the potentially dangerous levels of smoke endoscopists could be exposing themselves to when performing certain procedures such as tissue dissection and ablation. Dr. Chris Thompson, director of endoscopy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, compared the smoke exposure to orthopedic and repeated-use injuries endoscopists suffer due to ergonomic shortcomings.

Dr. Trent Walradt, a research fellow at Brigham and Women’s and lead author of the study, compared the cumulative volume of smoke during one procedure to smoking one cigarette.

“Everyone is being exposed — endoscopists, nurses, anesthesiologists and patients,” Walradt said in a statement. If you’re doing several procedures a day, that starts to add up. This could have important health consequences down the road.”

Here’s a video greeting from Dr. Loren Laine, DDW council chair and chief of the digestive diseases section at the Yale School of Medicine.