Neural ablation as a mechanism of action for antral myotomy in the treatment of obesity

We enjoyed reading the article by Hamada et al1 entitled “Gastric peroral endoscopic myo-neurotomy as less invasive bariatric surgery in porcine models: an experimental study.” This was a porcine study describing a newly coined peroral endoscopic myo-neurotomy (POEM-N) technique, which consisted of an antral myotomy of the stomach to disrupt gastric motility and potentially delay gastric emptying. The authors demonstrated the technical feasibility of this procedure; the 2 pigs that underwent the procedure experienced less weight gain than did the pigs that underwent sham procedures, 2 weeks after the procedure.