Post written by Ameya Deshmukh, DO, from the Department of Internal Medicine, Saint Louis University – SOM, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

EndoGel (Sunnarow Limited, Tokyo, Japan) is an ex vivo gel-based simulator that is designed to behave similarly to intestinal mucosa. It uses polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel materials, enabling this gel-based model to accurately mimic en vivo environments, and it has shown to be an effective training tool for third-space endoscopy.

In this video, we demonstrate its use to practice fundamental endoscopic techniques such as thermal marking, submucosal lifting, mucosal incision, snare polypectomy, and defect closure with clips.

Given practical limitations and potential ethical concerns of animal-based models (eg, porcine, bovine), we felt it was necessary to highlight this nonanimal-based training platform that can avoid or mitigate disadvantages of existing training models.

Furthermore, this gel-based platform may be more financially feasible than current animal models, facilitating endoscopic training in low-resource settings.

In conclusion, this new gel-based platform has the potential to improve access and streamline workflow for endoscopic training and may have significant implications on fellowship training.

A, Artificial model components. B, Training platform setup.

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