Colorectal Oncology Surgery Department

Harbin Medical University Second Affiliated Hospital Cancer Center—Department of Colorectal Surgical Oncology, is a Ministry of Health National Clinical Key Specialty (Oncology) Development Project, a Ministry of Education National Key Discipline Cultivation (Surgery) Development Project, the Harbin Integrative Medicine Center of the National Clinical Medical Research Center for Digestive System Diseases, the Chinese Medical Doctor Association Colorectal Cancer Specialty Committee NOSES Surgery Training Base, the Chinese Medical Doctor Association Colorectal Cancer Specialty Committee Robot-Assisted Surgery Training Base, the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association Colorectal Cancer Training Demonstration Base, the Heilongjiang Provincial Research Center for Innovation in Minimally Invasive Diagnosis and Treatment Technology for Colorectal Tumors (International Cooperation Platform), the Institute of Colorectal Cancer, Harbin Medical University, and the Colorectal Cancer Laboratory of the Institute of Oncology, China-Russia Medical Research Center, Harbin Medical University, and is a regional center for the diagnosis, treatment, and scientific research of colorectal tumors in Heilongjiang Province.

The department was established against the background of the specialization and refinement of medical care, with colon cancer and rectal cancer as its diagnostic and treatment focus, while covering all abdominal tumors, including intra-abdominal and retroperitoneal malignant tumors. The department primarily performs extended radical resection for rectal cancer, extended radical resection for colon cancer, combined organ resection for colorectal cancer, low-position anus-preserving surgery for rectal cancer, ultra-low-position anus-preserving surgery for rectal cancer, vascular bridging procedures for low-position anus-preserving surgery, cylindrical resection for rectal cancer, and other procedures. The department’s clinical surgical expertise and surgical volume remain firmly in the first echelon nationally, meeting requirements for standardization, normalization, and homogeneity; it is highly recognized by peers at home and abroad and has considerable influence. The department performs more than 1,000 operations annually, with specialized surgery for colorectal tumors accounting for more than 90%; among these, the domestically pioneered and internationally leading abdominal-incisionless radical resection for colorectal cancer using natural-orifice specimen extraction (NOSES) has been performed in more than 700 cases cumulatively. The department’s minimally invasive techniques are mature, and it routinely performs total laparoscopic minimally invasive surgery, single-incision laparoscopic minimally invasive surgery, transanal TME surgery, robotic surgery, and NOSES procedures, and in 2010 completed the first internationally reported radical resection for rectal cancer via a natural orifice (NOTES).

In recent years, with changes in surgical concepts and patients’ ever-increasing demands for quality of life, our department has extensively performed low-position and ultra-low-position anus-preserving surgery and proposed the “concept of selective extended radical resection for rectal cancer,” fully embodying the treatment principle of combining holistic and individualized approaches and enabling patients to benefit to the greatest extent. The department has accumulated extensive experience and skills in anus-preserving surgery and established the dentate line as the criterion for determining low-position and ultra-low-position anastomotic anus-preserving surgery. Through the continuous refinement of the theory of anus-preserving surgery, the department has established a more scientific and standardized diagnostic and treatment system for such surgery.

The department has consistently practiced the three principles of medical practice proposed by Professor Wang Xishan: “practicing medicine according to law, practicing medicine scientifically, and practicing medicine humanely,” and has developed in the direction of “minimally invasive within minimally invasive, difficult within difficult” as its professional hallmark. It took the lead in proposing relevant concepts for combined-organ resection and multi-organ resection, making the classification criteria and evaluation system for surgery more scientific and standardized. In clinical practice, it has the courage to perform various complex operations represented by right hemicolectomy combined with pancreaticoduodenectomy; the cumulative number of operations has reached several hundred, greatly improving the survival rate of patients with advanced colorectal cancer. The department emphasizes the application of the concept of functional surgery in the treatment of colorectal cancer and, on the basis of extended radical resection for rectal cancer, proposed selective extended radical resection for rectal cancer. This procedure can reduce collateral surgical injury while fully preserving patients’ normal postoperative physiological functions. In addition, it has successively proposed and performed a series of new techniques, mainly including: radical resection for rectal cancer through a lower abdominal transverse incision, radical resection for rectal cancer through a sacrococcygeal approach, omentum-preserving radical resection for colon cancer, and total colectomy preserving the rectal ampulla. The clinical application of these procedures can both ensure radical tumor treatment and significantly improve patients’ quality of life.

At the same time, with surgical treatment as its core, the department advocates comprehensive treatment and whole-course management under the guidance of a multidisciplinary team (MDT). Relying on the Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment Center of Harbin Medical University Second Affiliated Hospital, the department incorporates patients with intermediate- and advanced-stage colorectal cancer into the MDT treatment model, under which a multidisciplinary expert team composed of colorectal surgery, hepatic surgery, medical oncology, radiation oncology, radiology, and other specialties develops individualized diagnosis and treatment plans for patients. The department routinely provides neoadjuvant chemotherapy, adjuvant chemotherapy, radiotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, and interventional therapy for colorectal cancer. As the department’s influence has continued to expand, patients from Russia, South Korea, and the Chinese provinces and regions of Shaanxi, Guangxi, Yunnan, Chongqing, Shandong, Fujian, Liaoning, Henan, Jilin, and Inner Mongolia have successively come for treatment.