The History of BELG

Bariatric Endoscopy Live Global (BELG) was started in 2019 as a collaboration between Professors Eduardo Moura and Diogo Moura from Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo and Professor Christopher Thompson from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School).

Given the obesity pandemic and a sharp rise in the rate of adoption of endoscopic bariatric and metabolic therapy (EBMT) procedures, they felt it was time to organize a live endoscopy course focusing specifically in the field of EBMTs at a global scale.

The course aims to demonstrate techniques of cutting edge EBMT procedures to physicians worldwide at no costs, which ultimately would translate to improved care for patients suffering from obesity and its comorbidities worldwide. All types of bariatric and metabolic procedures are demonstrated ranging from primary EBMTs, revisional endoscopic procedures to treat weight regain, and endoscopic treatment of post-bariatric surgical complications.

In order to demonstrate the best practices in the field, several world-renowned bariatric endoscopists from various centers of excellence from all continents, are invited to perform live cases showing their techniques. Additionally, several experts, including bariatric endoscopists, therapeutic endoscopists, and bariatric surgeons, moderate the sessions and interact with the audience live.

The BELG course has been officially endorsed by the American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE). Additionally, several other professional endoscopy societies around the world have been co-endorsed the course, including Sociedade Brasileira de Endoscopia Digestiva (SOBED), Sociedad Interamericana de Endoscopia Digestiva (SIED), among others.

Additionally, industry sponsorship is welcomed to help support the course with the goal to share experience on the device to further improve its quality among leading endoscopists.

For a high-quality live online transmission, we thank TBR Produções (https://tbr.com.br/), a company which has been transmitting International Therapeutic Endoscopy Courses for over 30 years via live stream for the whole world. The experience of TBR includes live transmission of several renowned courses such as GASTRÃO (Brazil), SBAD (Brazil), DDW (USA), HITEC (USA), Endoscopy on Air (worldwide), ENDO (WEO), UCHID (Egypt), and others.

As the course aims to spread the knowledge regarding endoscopic management of obesity and related diseases, our course has several exclusive benefits, including free registration, live interaction between the audience and the experts through questions and answers, and an unlimited access to all recorded videos of the live cases after the course. Furthermore, the course is held in English with simultaneous translation into Spanish and Portuguese.

1st edition – BESP (Bariatric Endoscopy São Paulo)

In the first edition in 2019, we invited experts to perform live cases at a single center in São Paulo. At that time, the course’s name was Bariatric Endoscopy São Paulo (BESP). The course was held at Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo on October 4th and 5th, 2019. While all cases were performed live in São Paulo, there was a virtual component of the course. Specifically, all live cases were broadcasted live so that the audience around the world could watch them real time. This course was one of the earliest courses that allowed this hybrid format, even before it became common during the COVID-19 pandemic).

The format of the course in 2019 included 9 lectures and 32 live cases performed by seven renowned endoscopists from the USA (Christopher Thompson, Vivek Kumbhari, and Reem Sharaiha), Brazil (Eduardo Moura, Paulo Sakai, and Diogo Moura), Venezuela (Alberto Baptista), Czech Republic (Even Machytka), Belgium (Jacques Deviere), Spain (Gontrand Lopez-Nava), and Saudi Arabia (Aayed Alqahtani). We were fortunate to have 175 participants from 36 countries representing all continents. After excellent feedback from the audience, we had no doubt about continuing the course.

2nd edition (1st Bariatric Endoscopy Live Global)

With the hit from COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it was not feasible to gather the experts in person to perform live endoscopy at São Paulo. Therefore, the course directors decided to modify the format of the course. Furthermore, several additional experts from various regions were invited to be course co-directors, including Diogo Moura (Brazil), Alessandro Repici (Italy), Amit Maydeo (India), Aayed Alqahtani (Saudi Arabia), Paulo Sakai (Brazil), and Shelby Sullivan (USA).

The new format was to offer live case demonstration exclusively virtually. Additionally, given a continual growth in the field of EBMTs, more centers from around the world were invited to show case the most up-to-date techniques that may vary by regions. Furthermore, in order to have more time to demonstrate the cases, lectures were removed. Given that several centers worldwide would be performing live cases, the course’s name was changed to Bariatric Endoscopy Live Global (BELG).

The 1st BELG took place on October 2nd, 2020. We broadcasted 27 live cases from 12 centers, including São Paulo (Brazil), Boston (USA), Mumbai (India), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Rome (Italy) (two sites), Cairo (Egypt), Brussels (Belgium), Barcelona (Spain), New Jersey (USA), Madrid (Spain) and Rochester (USA), and 24 moderators discussed all procedures.

The 1st BELG was a tremendous success with 2457 registrations from 98 countries around the world.

2nd Bariatric Endoscopy Live Global

The 2nd BELG took place on October 1st, 2021, where live cases were broadcasted from 14 centers including São Paulo (Brazil), Boston (USA), Mumbai (India), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Rome (Italy), Cairo (Egypt), Morgantown (USA), Brussels (Belgium), New York (USA), Strasbourg (France), Jacksonville (USA), Denver (USA), Petah Tikva (Israel), and Rochester (USA). In 2021, 20 experts performed 27 live cases and 25 moderators shared their knowledge during the procedures.

The course was another great success with 2677 registrations from 109 countries around the world. At this point, BELG was recognized as the largest bariatric and metabolic endoscopy course in the world.

3rd Bariatric Endoscopy Live Global

As the largest bariatric and metabolic endoscopy course in the world to date, we work hard to continue to organize a high-yield 3rd BELG course by offering live case demonstrations from 17 centers of excellence from 5 continents.

We are passionate about bariatric and metabolic endoscopy, and we hope that the course will help highlight the most cutting-edge techniques and advancement in the field and bring all of us, who are equally passionate about the field, to come and share knowledge from around the world.

Thank you for reading and leaning about our history of our passion. If you are interested in being part of the history, please go to https://bariatricendoscopylive.com/#page-register to register for the 3rd BELG for free now. We cannot wait to see you on September 30th, 2022!

Thank you for being part of our dream.

Best,

Directors: Eduardo H de Moura (Brazil) and Christopher C Thompson (USA)
Co-Directors: Diogo T H de Moura (Brazil), Alessandro Repici (Italy), Paulo Sakai (Brazil), Amit Maydeo (India), Aayed Alqahtani (Saudi Arabia), and Shelby Sullivan (USA).