The Department of General Medicine and Hepatology is a reference center for liver diseases and complex internal medicine cases, also housing the Center for Research and Treatment of Autoimmune Liver Diseases. The Department specialists see almost 4,000 patients each year.
The main interests of the team, from the clinical and research perspectives, are concentrated in the following areas of liver conditions:
- Autoimmune diseases: primary biliary cirrhosis, primary sclerosing cholangitis, autoimmune hepatitis; for which the Department is recognized internationally;
- Chronic hepatitis (viral and metabolic) and cirrhosis complications;
- Primary liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma) and bile duct cancer (cholangiocarcinoma)
The department hospitalizes both critical, urgent and complex elective patients, treating other cases in the outpatient setting. The team approaches each patient from a systematic and personalized point of view, as clinical complexity often derives from the simultaneous presence of several conditions.
The team includes such professionals as research nurses and data managers, who work with doctors to carry out clinical research aimed at identifying new therapies for various liver conditions, especially for autoimmune diseases and viral infections.
The Department is also equipped with a Hepatobiliary Immunopathology Laboratory, performing immunologic tests and carrying out translational basic research projects, especially for immune-mediated liver diseases and liver tumors.
