Gastroenterology & Liver Projects
Finding opportunities for earlier diagnosis of liver disease
Liver disease is one of the leading causes of death in people of working age. Over the last 30 years, death rates from liver disease have continued to increase while those from many other diseases have decreased.
If liver scarring is picked up early, often simple treatments and lifestyle changes can help prevent end-stage liver disease. Unfortunately, liver scarring often has no symptoms but it can be picked up on blood tests and scans in people attending hospital and clinics for other reasons.
This project will look to see if people who are admitted to hospital with end-stage liver disease could have been picked up earlier on their standard blood tests, and why these blood tests were done. This will allow us to better target efforts to pick up early liver disease.
Lead Investigator: Dr Rachael Swann
Improving early diagnosis of serious bowel diseases
Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and colon cancer are the most serious diseases affecting the bowel. Early diagnosis and treatment are crucial. Sadly, delays to diagnosis are common and result in worse outcomes for individuals with these conditions. For example, more than a quarter of people wait more than a year for a diagnosis of IBD. During this time, nearly half end up in A&E at least once while waiting for a diagnosis. Strategies to improve early diagnosis of these conditions are urgently needed to improve treatment outcomes and quality of life for individuals with these illnesses.
This project will focus on individuals presenting to A&E departments with bowel symptoms. Through the analysis of clinical, laboratory and radiology findings, we aim to develop a risk prediction tool to identify individuals who are at high risk of having a serious underlying bowel condition and require urgent assessment and investigation by a bowel disease expert.