Symptoms and Conditions

Many patients suffer with gut disorders related to feeding, sensitivity, pain and evacuation. These disorders are often associated with abnormalities in how the nervous systems in the brain and the gut communicate with each other. These abnormalities can result in patient’s developing troubling symptoms such as heartburn, swallowing difficulties (dysphagia), chest pain, stomach pain, abdominal pain, bloating, nausea, constipation, diarrhoea and difficult defaecation.

These symptoms may be caused by conditions such as Gastro-oesophageal Reflux Disease, Oesophageal Dysmotility, Non-cardiac Chest Pain, Dyspepsia, Gastroparesis, Intestinal Pseudo-obstruction, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Rectal Evacuatory Disorders.

Patients with this type of disorder may also suffer from nutritional, respiratory and psychological problems. Neurogastroenterology is the medical discipline which specialises in diagnosing and treating abnormalities in gut neuromuscular function and brain-gut interactions.

Why is Neurogastroenterology important? Despite Neurogastroenterological disorders being extremely common, effective diagnosis of the cause of these symptoms and subsequent treatment is often difficult as specialist knowledge and accurate diagnostic tests are not readily available within most hospital settings. The lack of a firm diagnosis and treatment strategy can be extremely worrying for patients and drastically reduce their quality of life.

In the past 5 years, there have been many technological advances in diagnostics for studying gut neuromuscular function and brain-gut interactions. Application of these new technologies to study complex neurogastroenterology patients is increasing the diagnostic yield of these investigations and helping clinicians to make informed decisions about tailored management strategies in often difficult to treat patients.

Where do Neurogastroenterology patients get referred from? Patients are referred to the Neurogastroenterology service from many other medical disciplines. In addition to Gastroenterology (and GI surgeons), we receive referrals from medical and surgical specialties such as Cardiology, Respiratory, Rheumatology, Diabetology, Neurology and Urogynaecology as well as directly from General Practitioners. It should also be noted that some problems can also be manifest in childhood and thus paediatricians may also seek expert advice.

Image shows impaired oesophageal peristalsis and viscous bolus transit as assessed using our state of the art high resolution oesophageal manometry and impedance monitoring.