Dr John F Dillon
Based: Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee
Donor: Glaxo Wellcome
Amount: £107,656 (payable over two years)
Start date: 1st January 1999
Title of study: Epidemiology of liver disease in Tayside (ELDIT) study: A population based record linkage study
Download: Epidemiology of liver disease in Tayside final report.pdf
The ascertainment of the true incidence of the protean manifestations of liver disease is a difficult task but is a vital first step before the research needs and health resource implications of liver disease can be adequately assessed. Liver disease is a broad term, ranging from minor abnormalities of liver function tests may represent serious subclinical disease, and additionally have health resource implications for the cost of their investigations to exclude serious liver diseases.
The Epidemiology of Liver Disease in Tayside (ELDIT) Study Group are dedicated to evaluating the prevalence of diagnosed liver disease in the Tayside region of Scotland. Tayside is a geographically compact region centred on Dundee, Scotland, with 400,000 residents who have a low rate of migration. Tayside is unrivalled throughout the United Kingdom in using a unique patient identifier, the Community Health Number (CHNo) for all primary and secondary health care activities. Thus all hospital admissions and records, all blood tests (haematology, biochemistry, virology, immunology), all histology reports and community prescribing data use the CHNo as the patient identifier.
Record linkage of these data sources places the ELDIT Study Group in a unique position of being able to identify all patients with known liver disease in a defined population. This technique has already been developed and validated in Tayside for other disease states. The ELDIT Study Group have defined accurately the burden of liver disease in the Tayside population.
References:
Steinke DT, Weston TL, Morris AD, MacDonald TM, Dillon JF; Epidemiology and economic burden of viral hepatitis: an observational population based study; Gut 2002 ; 50:100-105