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Digestive Disease Center

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Digestive Disease Center

Gastrointestinal Oncology

A Singular Foundation for Care of the Whole Patient

The state-of-the-art Temple Digestive Disease Center is home base for patients during their consultations and procedures. All the main diagnostic, interventional, and surgical procedures happen right here. Most new patients are seen within one week of referral. Multilingual support services ensure that all patients may readily navigate their treatment course. From the first suspicion of cancer and throughout the course of treatment, we make patient service a top priority and adapt to patient needs.

We Tackle Complex Cases

The GI Oncology Program at Temple combines an array of specialty services for comprehensive and effective therapy. Core services include:

  • Gastroenterology

  • Hepatology

  • Medical oncology

  • Surgical oncology

  • Radiation oncology

  • Radiology

  • Interventional radiology

  • Pathology

  • Surgery (hepatobiliary, colorectal, general)

  • Pain management and anesthesia

  • Pharmacy

  • Oncology nursing

  • Cancer care support services with dietitians, social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists

Our team is recognized for helping patients with the most difficult-to-treat cancers — including those with advanced disease, high risks, substantial comorbidities, or fast-evolving medical complications. We are highly experienced in managing GI malignancies with interventional endoscopy and other advanced techniques.

We Take Over Where the Textbook Ends

Not uncommonly, GI cancer patients must deal with multiple medical issues at the same time. Maybe it's not just cancer, but also heart or lung disease, chronic GI conditions, an unexpected delay in surgery, or a sudden need for ICU support. Complexity happens. How to deal with it is rarely spelled out in textbooks or treatment protocols.

Managing complex cases is our strength. In large part, this results from our proximity to top clinicians and surgeons in other Temple specialties such as cardiology, pulmonology, critical care, and neurology. Our tight integration with these other disciplines makes it easier for us to find solutions that best match each patient's needs for even the most complicated cases.

We Harness the Latest Cancer Treatments

Temple cancer specialists were among the first in the region to treat GI malignancies with laparoscopic and endoscopic treatments. Today, we remain leaders in diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopy. Our surgeons and interventionalists routinely perform technically challenging procedures that allow patients to avoid standard surgeries and achieve the best possible outcomes. Our specialists also employ all the latest chemotherapy agents and combination regimens, cancer-targeted biological agents, advanced imaging and biomarker tests, and novel forms of cancer radiotherapy and radiosurgery.

Our Powerful Targeted Technologies and Broad Multispecialty Resources

Temple provides patients and their referring physicians with prompt access to one of the region's most sophisticated collections of technology for diagnosing and treating GI cancers. Our setting within Temple University Hospital also guarantees access to all the advanced multispecialty resources of a leading tertiary care hospital.

In addition to standard GI modalities, our onsite capabilities include:

  • Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) and EUS-guided fine needle aspiration (FNA) for diagnosis and staging of esophageal, gastric, pancreatic, mediastinal, abdominal, and rectal lesions (as needed in conjunction with standard CT, PET, PET/CT or MRI)

  • EUS with fine needle injection (FNI) for pain control via celiac
    plexus block

  • Cholangioscopy for intra-biliary lesions, pancreatobiliary endoscopy, and enhanced digital fluoroscopy

  • Thoracoscopy and laparoscopy

  • Video capsule endoscopy and double-balloon and other modalities of device-assisted enteroscopy

  • Stents for esophageal, pyloric, duodenal, biliary, and colorectal obstructions

  • Laser ablation, cryoablation, microwave ablation, and radiofrequency ablation (RFA)

  • Radioembolization and transarterial chemoembolization (TACE)

  • Complex endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR)

  • Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS)