Gastroenterology Department (Endoscopy Center)

1. General information: The Department of Gastroenterology was established in 2005, concurrently with the founding of Suzhou Kowloon Hospital. As a frontline department of our hospital, it primarily provides diagnosis and treatment for various gastrointestinal diseases and diseases of digestive organs, including the liver, gallbladder, pancreas, esophagus, stomach, and intestines. Its annual outpatient volume now exceeds 80,000 visits; the annual number of inpatients exceeds 2,000; the annual volume of endoscopic diagnostic and therapeutic procedures exceeds 20,000 cases; and all types of surgery exceed 1,000 procedures per year. 2. Bed capacity: The department has 45 authorized beds and 60 beds actually in operation. 3. Staff team: It currently has 34 medical and nursing staff, including 17 physicians, among whom 1 holds a doctoral degree, 5 hold master's degrees, and 7 are chief or deputy chief physicians. 4. Equipment: The department has a standardized endoscopy center staffed by professional medical and nursing personnel. It includes 5 gastroscopy and colonoscopy examination rooms, 1 ERCP treatment room, and 1 capsule endoscopy examination room. It has multiple Olympus 290 and Fujifilm 7000 processors and electronic gastroscopy and colonoscopy diagnostic and therapeutic systems, a PENTAX ultrasound processor and endoscopes, a Siemens mobile C-arm X-ray machine, a Micro-Tech biliary endoscope imaging controller, a U.S. MINTAIKE fully automatic gastroscope and colonoscope cleaning and disinfection machine, a high-frequency argon electrosurgical unit, an OMOM capsule endoscopy system, a C13 Helicobacter pylori testing device, and other equipment. Endoscopic examination and treatment instruments are strictly managed in accordance with the national standard “Technical Operating Specifications for Cleaning and Disinfection of Endoscopes,” meeting the standard for “terminal disinfection.” 5. Clinical specialties: The department routinely provides emergency treatment for acute, severe, and critical gastroenterological diseases, such as massive gastrointestinal bleeding, acute severe pancreatitis, cirrhosis, and hepatic encephalopathy. In the medical diagnosis and treatment of digestive diseases, in addition to conventional drug therapy, conventional and painless gastroscopy and colonoscopy examinations are routinely performed. The routinely performed grade III and IV endoscopic procedures include: endoscopic gastric and colonic polypectomy; endoscopic hemostatic treatment for gastrointestinal bleeding caused by various factors; endoscopic injection sclerotherapy and band ligation for esophageal varices; tissue-glue embolization for gastric fundal varices; endoscopic foreign-body removal; endoscopic stent placement for upper and lower gastrointestinal strictures; esophageal stricture dilation; EUS-guided puncture of pancreatic tumors; ganglion block; ERCP-assisted stone extraction and drainage for common bile duct stones, dilation and stent placement for benign and malignant biliary strictures, and biliary mucosal brushing. In recent years, endoscopic band ligation and sclerotherapy for grade I-III internal hemorrhoids have been well received by many patients with internal hemorrhoids.