Help is required to identify patients for this study investigating the genetics of 5ASA induced nephrotoxicity. This is the first of what we hope will be a series of genetic studies, led by the UK IBD Genetics consortium, investigating rare adverse drug events. The study had been adopted as an NIHR portfolio study (renal & gastro) and is funded by the Serious Adverse Events Forum.

Our aim is to recruit 200 UK patients and a further 100 international patients over the next 2 years. Although this is a very rare side effect the Drug Induced Liver Injury group have demonstrated that it can be done! Using the NIHR infrastructure we need to establish as many research sites across the UK as possible to facilitate case identification and recruitment. Most of the paperwork relating to site set up can be done from our research office.

Eosinophilic Oesophagitis Registry - The Oesophageal section of the British Society of Gastroenterology has set up a National Registry of eosinophilic oesophagitis, to determine the frequency of this condition in Britain, to study its epidemiology and to encourage research into its patho-physiology and treatment. As you know, eosinophilic oesophagitis is being increasingly recognised in recent years and presents with food bolus obstruction, dysphagia and heartburn in adults, and regurgitation, food refusal and abdominal pain in children. Endoscopic changes have been described but the diagnosis is a histological one, based on eosinophilic infiltration of the oesophageal mucosa, > 15 or 20 per high power field, more than is normally found in gastro-oesophageal reflux disease.

We suspect eosinophilic oesophagitis may be under-diagnosed. We have put up a notice regarding the setting up of this Registry on the BSG website, and are also e-mailing members of the Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland and ENT UK. We would also like to draw your attention to this condition, to remind you to refer patients who present with dysphagia, food impaction and atypical or resistant reflux symptoms for endoscopy and oesophageal biopsies even if the oesophageal mucosa appears macroscopically normal. We would also ask that you enter all cases of eosinophilic oesophagitis into the Registry.

Data may be entered without the need for a log-in.

Hyperplastic polyps are common and are generally thought to have no role in the development of colorectal cancer. Hyperplastic polyposis, on the other hand, is recognised by the World Health Organisation as a disease and is thought to be associated with a significant risk of colorectal cancer.

Formerly: Hepatic Adverse Drug Reactions Study

The international Drug-induced Liver Injury Consortium (iDILIC), a multi-national research group led jointly by Professor Ann Daly, Newcastle University and Dr Guruprasad Aithal, Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre: NIHR Biomedical Research Unit is studying the genetic susceptibility to idiosyncratic drug-induced liver injury. The UK arm of the study, DILIGEN, is a portfolio study adopted by Comprehensive Local Research Networks (CLRN) nationally.

Hereditary cancer syndromes have provided the samples for linkage analysis that made possible the identification of novel cancer-causing genes. Diffuse type gastric cancer remains one of the more common and aggressive human cancers. We propose to collect information from families with clustered cases of gastric cancer and identify pedigrees, which suggest a pattern of autosomal dominant inheritance. Linkage and candidate gene analysis in these pedigrees will be used to identify a potential major susceptibility locus. Mutations have been identified rarely in individuals under the age of 50 so it appears justified to search for germline mutations in gastric cancer cases diagnosed under the age of 45.