Gastroenterology and Hepatology

The department of Gastroenterology / Hepatology straddles 3 sites, St James’s Hospital, Tallaght University Hospital and Naas General Hospital.

The departments of Gastroenterology / Hepatology are modern university affiliated units providing high quality care for the full spectrum of GI diseases to both inpatient and outpatients in our catchment areas. The departments are also tertiary referral centres.

Gastroenterology and Hepatology Departments provide a holistic approach to patient care whereby medical care is provided by multi-disciplinary teams and has close links with other Medical and Surgical services, Diagnostic Services, Cancer Services and Nursing Services.

Specialist Services

The Gastroenterology/Hepatology Departments also offer diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopy including upper GI endoscopy, Colonoscopy, Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangio-Pancreatography (ERCP), Double Balloon Enteroscopy (DBE) and Endoscopic Ultrasonography (EUS), Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), Obscure G.I. Bleeding, Colorectal Screening, Helicobacter Pylori (H.pylori) infection, Haemochromatosis, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), alcohol related liver disease, autoimmune liver disease (including primary biliary cirrhosis, auto-immune hepatitis, primary sclerosing cholangitis), drug induced liver conditions and less common diseases such as alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency and Wilson's disease.

St James’s Hospital
The newly built endoscopy unit with 7 endoscopy suites and 2 screening rooms provides a comprehensive range of services, focusing on diagnostic and advanced therapeutic endoscopy including luminal stenting. Our department also provides sophisticated service such as 24 hours intra-oesophageal pH, manometry studies and assessment for bile reflux. More recently we have also acquired a State-of-the-Art HALO therapy for Barrett’s ablation.

Staff:

Tallaght University Hospital

The Endoscopy Unit has 3 Endoscopy procedure rooms and two recovery areas.  The Endoscopy Unit is a facility that provides a service for outpatients, inpatients and patients from referring hospitals. The Endoscopy Unit is an integral part of the Gastroenterology Unit which comprises adjacent outpatient consultation rooms, a GI function lab and GI Research facility

Tallaght University Hospital is the first centre in Ireland to conduct colorectal cancer screening using Faecal Immunological blood testing.  We are one of only two centres in Ireland that performs Double Balloon Enteroscopy (both diagnostic and therapeutic) and receive referrals from all over the country for this procedure.
We are also a referral centre for Capsule Endoscopy which is available in only one other centre in the Republic.

Staff:

Research

Professor Dermot O’Toole’s major research interest is in gastrointestinal cancer biology especially focussing in neuroendocrine-related diseases and early neoplasia in the gastrointestinal tract (Barrett’s oesophagus, gastric and colorectal cancers).

Professor O’Toole leads the national endoscopic interventional program for early digestive cancers and is also national clinical lead for the neuroendocrine tumour group. He also serves on the executive committee of the European Neuroendocrine Tumours Society (ENETS) and has helped develop many guidelines, papers and standards of care initiatives in the field of NET as well as chairing the ENETS-driven European Centre of Excellence program. He has been principal investigator and/or coordinator in many national and international research activities in GI oncology.

Professor O’Toole is a member of several professional bodies in Europe and North America and has served as advisor on several national health care projects/initiatives and on patient advocacy groups.

Professor Suzanne Norris is the co-founder and former chair of the Irish Hepatitis C Outcomes Research Network (ICORN).

ICORN is the leading platform for Hepatitis C (HCV) clinical research in Ireland and core point of contact for clinicians, patient advocacy groups and healthcare service providers, involved in the care and treatment of patients with HCV. ICORN’s vision is that everyone in Ireland living with HCV will be tested, will have access to care, will have received treatment and will have achieved a cure by 2025. C it Off 2025!

ICORN Research spans the areas of HCV surveillance, education, prevention, screening, immune-virology, treatment, pharmacokinetic studies of DAA therapies and health outcomes research. ICORN is a world class, multi-centred collaboration, uniquely positioned with access to >7500 patients diagnosed with HCV in Ireland. With access also to the Wellcome Trust/HRB-funded National Clinical Research Facilities at participating sites, ICORN members have significant expertise in all areas of clinical research. The ICORN Treatment Registry records all patients treated with Direct Acting Antivirals (DAAs) in Ireland, and monitors their outcomes – clinical, virologic and economic. Outcomes Data from the Registry, an essential element of ICORN's Research, informs national policy through the HSE National Hepatitis C Treatment Programme, under the governance of the NCPE.

ICORN Models of Care - Innovative and integrative models of care delivery are being pioneered including outreach screening, staging of disease with on-site fibroscan services, and ICORN-ECHO.

ICORN-ECHO is a partnership between ICORN and Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes), designed to assist community-based providers to offer safer and more comprehensive care for patients underserved by the current model.

Dr Cara Dunne was a Newman Fellow : her fellowship focused on the examination and functional validation of prognostic genes to better understand and influence the response to chemotherapy treatments in early colorectal cancer. Colorectal cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the western world. At the time of diagnosis, approximately 30% of individuals are found to have early stage II colorectal cancer..

Trinity Academic Gastroenterology Group