Endoscopy

Endoscopy is an important part of the diagnosis, surveillance and treatment for polyposis patients.

Our patients are referred at different stages of their treatment journey but often an initial endoscopy procedure will be requested by their consultant to fully assess the patient and decide on the most suitable treatment options.

The Wolfson Unit for Endoscopy

Contact for general queries regarding appointments:

Tel: 020 8235 4130

Tel: 020 8235 4131 (24 hr answer phone service)

Fax: 020 8235 4149

The Wolfson Unit for Endoscopy at St Mark’s is world renowned, being the only unit in the UK to achieve international recognition as a centre of excellence for endoscopy research and training. It was also the first unit in London to be accredited as a Bowel Cancer Screening centre in 2006 and is currently one of only six pilot sites in the UK for the Bowel Scope Screening programme, delivering the national bowel cancer screening programmes to the local population. The Wolfson Unit has also developed regional and national referral services for polypectomy, video capsule endoscopy and double-balloon enteroscopy, and provides nationally accredited courses for the teaching and training of endoscopists.

The Wolfson unit has six procedure rooms with state-of-the-art equipment and provides endoscopy services for both St Mark’s and Northwick Park Hospital. Together with a smaller, two-room unit at Central Middlesex hospital around 18,000 endoscopies are performed per year. A full range of therapeutic procedures are performed in the unit, and cutting edge instruments and accessories combined with specialist endoscopy doctors and nurses allow the unit to ‘reach the parts other doctors cannot reach’ – comfortably and safely.

What is Endoscopy?

An endoscopic procedure allows the doctor or nurse to visually inspect your gastrointestinal tract using a video camera attached to the end of a long thin flexible tube. Upper Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (also known as OGD or Gastroscopy) includes examination of the oesophagus (food pipe or gullet), stomach and duodenum (the first part of the small bowel). Lower Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (colonoscopy or flexible sigmoidoscopy) is an examination of the colon (large bowel). We are also able to visualise the entire small bowel using either an easily swallowed pill-sized camera (video capsule endoscopy) or specialist endoscopic equipment designed to navigate the small bowel (double-balloon enteroscopy).