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Research, education and teaching
Research and education
The research stays close to the clinic. It looks at why some patients with Crohn's disease develop scarring and strictures while others do not, how dangerous polyps can be found earlier and how colonoscopy is prioritised in the public system.
Current research
What the research is asking
Fibrostenosing Crohn's disease
Identifying who progresses to stricturing disease and how imaging and biomarkers might predict it before surgery becomes the only option. How strictures are treated now is set out on the stricture dilatation page.
Serrated neoplasia and early-onset bowel cancer
Detection, surveillance intervals and the biology behind rising colorectal cancer incidence in younger Australians, including microbiome-based biomarker work.
Intestinal ultrasound in IBD
Layer-specific ultrasound parameters as a non-invasive measure of disease activity, answering in the clinic questions that would otherwise need a colonoscopy. This work is led by Dr Aviv Pudipeddi at Concord, with A/Prof Kariyawasam part of the research team.
Cytomegalovirus in acute severe ulcerative colitis
Whether cytomegalovirus changes the outcome for patients admitted with severe colitis and how testing for it is used in Australian practice. Published work with the Concord group, with a further study presented at Australian Gastroenterology Week 2026.
Appendicectomy in ulcerative colitis
Synthesising the published evidence and running prospective work on whether appendicectomy alters the course of ulcerative colitis.
Access, equity and health services
Colonoscopy wait times and urgency categorisation, open-access endoscopy models and the practical consequences of medicines policy for patients with IBD.
Guidelines
Guideline development
Several pieces of national and state guideline work sit behind how colonoscopy is prioritised and how often it is repeated.
Clinical Practice Guidelines for Surveillance Colonoscopy
Developed by Cancer Council Australia and approved by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), these guidelines set the intervals used after polyps are removed and after a diagnosis of bowel cancer or colitis. A/Prof Kariyawasam was part of the working party, on the section covering colonoscopic surveillance and the management of dysplasia in inflammatory bowel disease. They are the intervals set out on the surveillance intervals page of this site, alongside the American, European and British guidelines for comparison. There is more on what the guidelines cover in the news section.
Agency for Clinical Innovation
A/Prof Kariyawasam is a clinical co-chair of the Gastroenterology Network at the Agency for Clinical Innovation, which works on how gastroenterology services are planned and delivered across NSW Health.
Consensus statements
A/Prof Kariyawasam has contributed to Australian consensus statements in inflammatory bowel disease, each developed by a panel of clinicians using a modified Delphi process.
- 2025Assessments and vaccinations before starting advanced therapies. Infection screening and the vaccination schedule before a biologic, a JAK inhibitor or an S1P modulator, and the cardiovascular, thromboembolic, malignancy, cardiac and eye assessments that go with the newer classes. Written for the Australian IBD Consensus Working Group. Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 2025.
- 2017Therapeutic drug monitoring of anti-TNF therapy. When to measure drug levels and antibodies, and the trough concentrations to aim for, so that a treatment that is failing can be told apart from one that was never dosed properly. Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 2017.
- 2016Acute severe ulcerative colitis. How a patient admitted with severe colitis should be assessed and treated, including testing for cytomegalovirus, clot prevention, when to start rescue therapy and when to involve the surgeons. Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 2016.
NSW colonoscopy categorisation
The Agency for Clinical Innovation's clinical practice guide, published in August 2020, sets out how urgently a referral should be seen in the New South Wales public system: within 30, 90 or 365 days depending on the indication. A/Prof Kariyawasam was a member of the working group that produced it, and as clinical co-chair of the Gastroenterology Network he now has the guide among the areas of work the network oversees. There is more on how the categories work in the news section.
Education
Education and teaching
Teaching runs alongside the clinical work and the research, and most of it is aimed at the doctors who see patients first.
IBD Sydney
A/Prof Kariyawasam is a founding director of IBD Sydney, a not-for-profit organisation that has delivered continuing professional development in inflammatory bowel disease to gastroenterologists, trainees, nurses and general practitioners every year since 2016.
General practice
He teaches general practitioners on bowel cancer in general practice: screening, the pathway after a positive test, colonoscopy quality and recognising early-onset bowel cancer in younger patients, drawing on his group's research on colonic pathology in Western Sydney.
Specialist and university teaching
He contributes to the National IBD School, teaches at Macquarie University and Western Sydney University, and chairs and speaks at clinical meetings in inflammatory bowel disease.
Supervision
He supervises Master of Research, PhD and advanced trainee research in inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal pathology and welcomes enquiries from trainees interested in clinical research.
Output
Publications and presentations
Fifty-two peer-reviewed publications indexed in PubMed between 2006 and 2026, in inflammatory bowel disease, endoscopy and colorectal pathology, cited more than 2,000 times, with regular presentations at the European Crohn's and Colitis Organisation (ECCO) congress, Digestive Disease Week (DDW) and Australian Gastroenterology Week (AGW).
Make an appointment
Appointments are booked through the rooms directly. Have your GP referral ready when you call or ask your GP to send it ahead. Urgent inflammatory bowel disease, rectal bleeding and positive bowel screening referrals are prioritised.
Norwest & Rouse Hill (02) 8530 1800 Pennant Hills (02) 9875 2311 Macquarie Park (02) 9812 3880