Introduction
The Liver Surgery Department was developed from the Zhongshan Hospital Liver Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment Team formed in 1969. Under the leadership of Academician Tang Zhaoyou and other senior specialists, the department has become the national key discipline of oncology, the support organization of the Liver Cancer Committee of Chinese Anti-Cancer Association, the Ministry of Education key laboratory of carcinogenesis and invasion theory, the Ministry of Health key clinical discipline, Shanghai Clinical Medicine Center of Liver Cancer (essential key discipline), and one of the two major liver cancer research bases in China.
The leading figure of the department is Prof. Fan Jia, and the academic leader is Prof. Zhou Jian. The department has 45 staff members in payroll, of whom 23 have senior professional titles or associate senior professional titles, and more than 90% have a doctoral degree. Afterthe department moved into the new Shanghai Liver Cancer Center Building in February 2015, it has 230 beds (4 regular wards, 1 special-need ward and one care unit). The scale and diagnosis level of the department both take the lead internationally.
Clinical Features
The department provides excellent service, which has attracted a great amount of patients at home and abroad.
While it emphasizes on the quality of medical care, it also has a rising number of operations (about 4000 cases in 2015). The department has gathered clinical experience from tens of thousands of liver cancer operations, and more than 3,000 patients have survived for over 5 years after operations, more than 1,000 over 10 years, and the longest has lived more than 41 years who made a world record. From 2001 to the end of 2015, the department has conducted over 1,500 liver transplantation cases, of which the overall five-year survival rate of end-stage liver transplantation patients is 85%, while that of liver transplant patients meeting the Milan Criteria is close to 80%.The survival rate of liver transplant patients in this department has reached the international advanced level. The clinics cover various benign and malignant hepatic diseases such as primary liver cancer, metastatic liver cancer, hilar cholangiocarinoma and hepatic hemangioma. All surgical methods of hepatotomy, orthotopic liver allotransplantation, liver donor liver transplantation, combined liver-kidney transplantation, laparoscopic minimal invasion hepatectomy, robot assisted hepatectomy and ALPPS are being used. The department established “Primary Liver Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment Standard”, “Liver Cancer Liver Transplantation Shanghai Fudan Standard” and “Portal Vein Tumor Thrombi Optimized Scheme”, which have been introduced to a lot of hospitals and received good effect. The department also actively devotes to the promotion and application of new clinical technologies and methods, such as interferon or combined use of xeloda to prevent tumor recurrence, portal vein pump in continuing treatment of PVTT. Many techniques initiated by the department were the first at home and abroad while some take the lead in Asia. In recent years, it has conducted many core clinical trails and accumulated abundant experience.
Teaching and Research Achievements
The department now consists of 13 doctoral and master’s student supervisors. Every year, it cultivates over 20 postgraduates, of whom 5 have won “National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation”Award. It undertakes the teaching of Shanghai municipal surgery specialists and visiting physicians at home and abroad every year, and holds international and domestic academic conferences regularly. So far, the “National Liver Cancer Academic Conference” has been the largest symposium in our nation’s liver cancer field, which demonstrates our nation’s latest progress in liver cancer research.
In conducting scientific research, the department focuses on the synthesis of innovation and work performance, clinical practices and knowledge foundation, while discovering new knowledge gaps. The department has already formed highlights like new marker of liver cancer early diagnosis, tumor and microenvironment, liver tumor stem cells and circulating tumor cell, clinical research and related basics of liver transplantation of HCC, and molecular marker of liver cancer recurrence and metastasis. The department has won two first prize of National Award for Progress in Science and Technology, and two second prize; one second prize of National Prize for Natural Sciences and more than 20 provincial awards. Every year, it obtains more than 10 national and provincial research projects. Five staff memebers of the department won Shanghai Health System “Sliver Snake Award”. Many papers were published on internationally famous periodicals such as New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Medicine, and Journal of Clinical Oncology.
With everyone’s effort, the department will achieve more innovative findings in liver cancer diagnosis, especially the early diagnosis and the prevention of liver cancer recurrence and metastasis. It will emphasize on the randomized grouping clinical research, the “translational medicine” and “accurate medicine”. And the department will further improve liver cancer patients’ prognosis and maintain its leading position on the international stage.
