Gastrointestinal symptoms are among the most frequent complaints that bring a patient into a clinic or hospital. Gastro-esophageal reflux and chronic inflammatory bowel diseases, such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, are often associated with severely impaired quality of life and complications, such as bleeding, obstruction, perforation, or even cancer formation. Hepatitis and liver cirrhosis also cause serious health problems that have life-altering and debilitating effects.

Cancers of the digestive tract, including the pancreas, colon, esophagus, stomach, and liver, are responsible for more than 120,000 deaths in the United States each year. In some ethnic populations, digestive tract malignancies represent more than 50 percent of all cancer deaths. Most of these deaths are preventable because these cancers are curable if diagnosed early.

Learn more about our Targeted Areas of Research.

The rising incidence of inflammatory bowel diseases, hepatitis, and digestive cancers gives us a heightened sense of urgency to provide a foundation for a collaborative, comprehensive approach to patient care, to conduct innovative research that will advance clinical management, and to educate professionals to further expand their knowledge in the field of hepatology and digestive cancers.

In support of this need, and to maximize the potential for dramatic progress on many fronts, the UW Division of Gastroenterology seeks to establish itself as a center of world leadership in the research, prevention, diganosis, and treatment of hepatitis, digestive cancers, and other diseases of the digestive tract. Learn more about our innovative research program: