David Cummings MD is senior author of an international consensus statement proposing that gastrointestinal surgery may be a viable alternative therapy for type 2 diabetes in some patients and pointing the way toward new directions in research. “The Diabetes Surgery Summit Consensus Conference: Recommendations for the Evaluation and Use of Gastrointestinal Surgery to Treat Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus,” the first such statement on the topic, was published online on November 24 in the Annals of Surgery.

Dr. Cummings, associate professor of medicine and an investigator at the DOCE, was a convenor of the 2007 international summit held to evaluate the evidence and develop guidelines for the use of bariatric surgery in type 2 diabetes. The group recommended that such surgery be considered a specific diabetes intervention and not be limited to patients with BMI >35. The statement has been endorsed by 21 scientific societies including the American College of Surgeons and the American Diabetes Association, and a taskforce was established to guide the study and development of diabetes surgery.

UW Medicine News
Dr. Cummings’s Medicine Grand Rounds on bariatric surgery and diabetes