Multiple Specialists Working Together to Help Your Child

The Interventional Endoscopy Center uses a collaborative, team approach. When developing a treatment plan, our endoscopists consult with other specialists at Cincinnati Children’s to consider the child’s needs from every angle. These specialists may include radiologists, interventional radiologists, pediatric surgeons and other subspecialty physicians.

Interventional endoscopists, interventional radiologists and pediatric surgeons may work side by side in the operating room during an interventional endoscopic procedure. Doing so allows them to assist one another and make decisions together, each lending their expertise to achieve the best outcome possible.

Interventional Endoscopy Testing and Treatment

Pediatric interventional endoscopy takes place in the operating room under general anesthesia. The main types of interventional endoscopy procedures we offer include the following:

• Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), which can treat conditions of the liver, gallbladder, bile ducts, pancreas and pancreatic duct.
• Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS), an endoscopic imaging test that helps doctors treat diseases in and around the digestive tract. EUS can find problems that other imaging tests may not be able to find. It can be used to obtain biopsies from masses or organs, collect samples from fluid collections or intervene with internal drainage for infected or painful fluid collections.
• Double-balloon enteroscopy (DBE) and single-balloon enteroscopy (SBE), which allow physicians to advance the endoscope deep into the small intestine. These techniques can help doctors diagnose and treat various small intestine conditions. Additionally, doctors can use this technique to access bile ducts or pancreatic ducts and perform ERCP in patients who have had prior surgical procedures that made their anatomy atypical.
• Endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) of large polyps, a procedure to remove pre-cancerous, early-stage cancer or other abnormal tissues (lesions) from the digestive tract. EMR can be an alternative to major surgery.
• Endoluminal wound vacuum therapy, in which the doctor places a tiny wound vacuum in a damaged GI tract. This therapy can promote healing for GI tracts that have developed a leak, tear or fistula (abnormal passageway).

Our pediatric endoscopy team provides additional procedures, including advanced feeding tube placement and treatment for injuries such as GI bleeding and narrowing in the esophagus or other parts of the GI tract.