Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology

The Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Inflammatory Bowel Disease Unit provides a comprehensive, multidisciplinary service for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).The service’s current catchment includes patients from the Metro North HHS and also incorporates an outreach telehealth service for patients with IBD in Wide Bay and Central Queensland health service areas.

The most common IBD subtypes are Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). They are chronic inflammatory diseases that continue to increase in incidence. They have a tendency to be diagnosed during early adulthood and currently affect approximately 85,000 Australians.

While a number of new medical therapies have become available in recent years, a substantial proportion of IBD patients will have medically refractory disease. Therefore, there remains a critical medical need for novel treatment approaches to increase the proportion of patients who can achieve long-term clinical remission. This outcome increases the probability of avoiding surgery and enjoying normal levels of quality of life and workforce participation.

The RBWH IBD Research Unit has a highly experienced medical and clinical research nursing team. During the past 20 years it has successfully participated in many pharmaceutical trials (Phase I – IV), academic and investigator initiated collaborative research projects of new and emerging treatments for CD and UC. It has a well-established reputation for high quality participation, recruitment, reliability and quality.

Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital provides specialised tertiary care for patients with liver disease patients within Metro North and is also the referral hub for Wide Bay and Central Queensland.  All tertiary services for inpatients and outpatients are provided except for liver transplant and we have a large referral base for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, Hepatitis B, hepatocellular cancer and autoimmune liver disease.

The Hepatology Research Unit has been established for over 20 years and has participated in many trials that were successful in finding a cure for Hepatitis C.  Our focus is on Phase 2 and 3 trials and we currently are recruiting for trials for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, Hepatitis B and the autoimmune diseases primary sclerosing cholangitis and primary biliary cholangitis.  Hepatocellular cancer is rapidly becoming more common in Australia and is a leading cause of death in patients with cirrhosis.  We are partnering with Medical Oncology to conduct trials of new therapies for this tumour.

Our study team of medical and nursing professionals is highly experienced and our unit very well regarded in the field.  Our active clinical trial programme offers our patients the opportunity to have early access to novel, life-saving therapies.

The Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital: Endoscopy Research Group (ERG) was formed in 2019 to support an increasing amount of interventional research work being undertaken. The ERG coordinates mostly Investigator-led clinical research in single and multi-site studies. The group has a large group of interventional endoscopists, many with national and international reputations. It has a dedicated Research Coordinator and Data Manager.

The ERG has primarily focussed on increasing the clinical research support of ongoing clinical trials, it has started several new clinical trials in bariatric endoscopy and pancreatic cancer screening and is currently setting up clinical databases to prepare for the expanded diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopy coming with the opening of Stars. The ERG has worked collaboratively with other RBWH departments in clinical research, most recently with Emergency and Internal Medicine in the management of upper gastrointestinal bleeding. Current interventional research projects involve capsule endoscopy, colonoscopy (safety, quality and polypectomy), bariatric endoscopy, Endoscopic ultrasound, dysplastic Barrett’s oesophagus and early oesophageal cancer, eosinophilic oesophagitis, and evaluation of the upper gastrointestinal bleeding pathway.