Colorectal Unit, Concord Hospital

The Colorectal Unit at Concord Hospital was established in 1980. It is a tertiary referral, academic, surgical department specialising in comprehensive and multidisciplinary care of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC), inflammatory bowel disease and pelvic floor disorders. It is a teaching unit of the Discipline of Surgery of the University of Sydney and is part of the Sydney South West Area Health Service.

The Unit participates fully in the Graduate Medical Programme within the Concord Clinical School, also in postgraduate nursing and surgical training’ in the advanced post-Fellowship Training Course of the Board in Colorectal Surgery (RACS and the Colorectal Surgical Society of Australia and New Zealand). Staff of the Unit also conduct four week-long continuing education courses per year for practising surgeons.

The Unit has an extensive collaborative clinical research programme working with other hospital and university departments centred on the Concord Colorectal Cancer Database established in 1971, together with established tissue bank facilities. It has an international reputation in the staging and classification of CRC and in the identification of new independent prognostic factors for patients with CRC as well as monitoring, quality assurance and defining clinical outcomes for patients who have had a resection for CRC. Staff have special expertise in the emerging field of proteomics and its application in the identification of novel, informative biomarkers in CRC which may assist in better defining prognosis and improving patient selection for adjuvant therapies.

The Unit also has an expanding laparoscopic surgical service and now performs over 130 laparoscopic operations for benign and malignant conditions annually, made possible by the acquisition of two dedicated high definition "digital" operating rooms for advanced laparoscopic and endosurgery.

Further information concerning the Colorectal Unit can be obtained by contacting the Head of Department.