Areas of Expertise

Dr Maxton Pitcher performs a range of treatments, including:

• Oesophageal dilatation
• Colonoscopy
• Polypectomy

Some of the conditions he commonly treats, include:

• Abdominal pain
• Indigestion
• Rectal bleeding
• Acid Reflux
• Constipation and diarrhoea
• Bowel Cancer
• Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD)
• Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
• Coeliac disease
• Achalasia of the cardia
• Cancer of oesophagus
• Gastro-Oesophageal reflux disease (GORD)
• Peptic ulcer
• Functional dyspepsia
• Eosinophilic oesophagitis
• Barrett’s oesophagus
• Colonic polyps

About Dr Maxton Pitcher

Dr Max Pitcher is a Consultant Gastroenterologist at OneWelbeck and a Consultant Physician and Gastroenterologist at Northwick Park and St Mark’s Hospitals.

He was awarded his BA degree in Medical Sciences at University of Cambridge in 1985 and continued his postgraduate medical studies at The John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, before qualifying as a Doctor in 1988. He trained at Guy’s Hospital, London, The Radcliffe Hospitals, Oxford and Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, where he was Medical Registrar.

He was granted a National Association for Colitis and Crohn’s disease (NACC) Research award in 1993 to join the Medical Research Council Dunn Clinical Nutrition Centre, Cambridge. His MD Thesis entitled “Sulphate-reducing bacteria, sulphur metabolism and ulcerative colitis” was commended in 1996 by the University of Cambridge.

He was Senior Registrar in Gastroenterology at The John Radcliffe Hospital until 1998 when he was appointed as Consultant Gastroenterologist and Physician at St Mark’s and Northwick Hospitals, Harrow. He was elected as Chairman of Medicine at St Mark’s by his peers in 2007 and was appointed Chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee at The Clementine Churchill Hospital in 2010 for five years. He is an active member of chamber ensembles and orchestras in his native Hertfordshire, London and the South-East, including Concertmaster of the European Doctors Orchestra.

Dr Pitcher trained in Medical Sciences at the University of Cambridge and later qualified from the University of Oxford in 1988. He completed a Doctorate of Medicine at the University of Cambridge in 1996. He was elected as Chairman of Medicine at St Mark’s by his colleagues in 2007 and Chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee at BMI The Clementine Churchill Hospital in 2010.

He is an accomplished classical violinist and Concertmaster of the European Doctors Orchestra. He has featured on the Sky News Kay Burley Show and his musical videos of live performance to patients during the COVID-19 pandemic have been seen by hundreds of thousands on-line all over the world.

Research Highlights

Key Publications

• Kelly SM, Pitcher MCL, Farmery SM, Gibson GR. Isolation of Helicobacter pylori from feces of patients with dyspepsia in the UK. Gastroenterol 1994;107:1671-1674
• Pitcher MCL, Cummings JH. Hydrogen sulphide: a bacterial toxin in ulcerative colitis? Gut 1996;39:1-4
• LockRJ, Pitcher MC, Unsworth DJ. IgA anti-tissue transglutaminase as a diagnostic marker of gluten sensitive enteropathy. J Clin Pathol 1999; 52:274-7.
• Pitcher MCL, Beatty ER, Cummings JH. The contribution of sulphate-reducing bacteria and 5-ASA to faecal sulphide in patients with ulcerative colitis. Gut 2000;46:64-72
• Ghosh S, et al. Natalizumab for active Crohn’s disease. NEJM 2003;348(1):24-33. (Pitcher MCL as member of International Antegren Study Group).
• Awotesu O, Missotten T, Pitcher MC, Lynn WA, Lightman S. Uveitis in a patient receiving rifabutin for Crohn’s disease. J R Soc Med 2004;97(9):440-1
• Forbes A, Jackson S, Walter C, Quraishi S, Jacyna M, Pitcher M. Acupuncture for irritable bowel syndrome:a blinded placebo-controlled trial. World J Gastroenterol 2005;11(26):4040-4
• Ng SC, Noursadeghi M, von Herbay A, Vaizey C, Pitcher MC, Flanagan KL. Cytomegalovirus enteritis associated with goblet cell carcinoid tumour of the appendix. J Infect 2006, Oct 14
• Thoua M, Murray CD, Winchester WJ, Roy AJ, Pitcher MC, Kamm MA, Emmanuel AV. Amitriptyline modifies the visceral hypersensitivity response to acute stress in irritable bowel syndrome. Aliment Pharmacol Ther 2008, Dec 12 (epub ahead of print)
• …HJW Thomas, JP Teare, AL Hart, MCL Pitcher. …Differences in inflammatory bowel disease phenotype between South Asians and Northern Europeans living in NW London, UK. The American Journal of Gastroenterology, 2011
• J Ferreira-Martins, A Yusuf, N Stafford, M Pitcher. Improving the management of spontaneous bacterial paradise: assessment of an intervention in trainee doctors. Clinical Medicine 2015.
• M Carbone, A Nardi, S Flack, G Carpino… Pretreatment prediction of response to ursodeoxycholic acid in primary biliary cholangitis: development and validation of the UDCA Response Score. – The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, 2018.
• TEXTBOOK Clinical Guide to Gastroenterology – edited by Yang Chen & Maxton Pitcher. Wiley Blackwell 2019.