Gastroenterology

The Department of Gastroenterology of Peking University Shenzhen Hospital was established at the opening of the hospital in 1999. It has five functional areas: the gastroenterology outpatient clinic, gastroenterology wards, the digestive endoscopy center, the gastrointestinal motility testing room, and the Helicobacter pylori testing room. It is a clinical department integrating medical care, teaching, and research; a key hospital discipline; the chairing institution of the Gastroenterology Special Committee of the Shenzhen Medical Association; a national regional center for the diagnosis and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease and a member institution of the Guangdong Inflammatory Bowel Disease Alliance; the chairing institution of the Shenzhen Inflammatory Bowel Disease Specialty Alliance; and the leading institution of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Group of the Gastroenterology Special Committee of the Shenzhen Medical Association. The Department of Gastroenterology has 50 medical and nursing staff, including 22 physicians, 9 chief physicians, 8 associate chief physicians, 8 physicians with doctoral degrees, and 10 with master’s degrees, all from key medical schools nationwide. Many physicians from the department have undertaken advanced training at Japan’s Cancer Institute Hospital, Cleveland Hospital in the United States, and renowned hospitals in China. The department has 46 beds in its gastroenterology wards and 9 endoscopy rooms. It has now developed subspecialty areas based on the diagnosis and treatment of common digestive diseases and difficult, critical illnesses, with distinctive strengths in “minimally invasive diagnosis and treatment under digestive endoscopy,” “inflammatory bowel disease,” “hepatobiliary and pancreatic intervention,” “gastrointestinal motility disorders,” and “neuroendocrine tumors.” Its annual outpatient volume and annual number of discharged patients both rank among the highest in Shenzhen, and it has been rated an “Excellent Department” by the hospital for many consecutive years. The Digestive Endoscopy Center is fully staffed and has excellent hardware and software facilities, making it a leading endoscopy center in Shenzhen with the capacity to serve surrounding cities. The Digestive Endoscopy Center has high-end endoscopic treatment and surgical equipment, including electronic gastroscopes, electronic colonoscopes, chromoendoscopy (NBI), magnifying endoscopy, endoscopic ultrasonography, capsule endoscopy, magnetically controlled gastroscopy, and small-bowel enteroscopy. Its featured technologies are as follows: （1）Routine gastrointestinal endoscopic examinations: painless gastroscopy and colonoscopy, NBI chromoendoscopy, magnifying endoscopy, capsule endoscopy, magnetically controlled capsule gastroscopy, and others; （2）Endoscopic diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal polyps and early tumors: argon plasma coagulation (APC), endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR), and endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD); （3）Minimally invasive treatment of submucosal tumors: endoscopic submucosal excavation (ESE) and submucosal tunneling endoscopic resection (STER); （4）Hemostasis for gastrointestinal bleeding, including esophageal variceal ligation, injection sclerotherapy for esophageal varices, tissue adhesive injection for gastric fundal varices, hemostasis of arterial bleeding from peptic ulcers, hemorrhoid ligation, and others; （5）Removal of esophageal foreign bodies; （6）Treatment of benign and malignant esophageal stenosis: balloon dilation, stent placement, and peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM); （7）Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration/biopsy (EUS-FNA/FNB). The annual number of completed endoscopic diagnostic and therapeutic procedures ranks first in Shenzhen. The department’s level of diagnosis and treatment of “inflammatory bowel disease” is at the forefront in Shenzhen. It is a national “Regional Center for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease” and a “Guangdong Inflammatory Bowel Disease Alliance member institution,” as well as the chairing institution of the “Shenzhen Inflammatory Bowel Disease Specialty Alliance” and the leading institution of the “Inflammatory Bowel Disease Group of the Gastroenterology Special Committee of the Shenzhen Medical Association.” It has established a strong multidisciplinary team (MDT) centered on gastroenterology and including gastrointestinal surgery, pathology, medical imaging, nutrition, pharmacy, and other departments; established comprehensive IBD diagnosis and treatment procedures and a follow-up mechanism; and provides professional diagnostic and therapeutic services for numerous IBD patients in and outside Shenzhen, with more than 3,000 IBD outpatient visits and nearly 900 hospitalizations annually. The department was the first in Shenzhen to introduce a manometry system related to gastrointestinal motility and established Shenzhen’s first gastrointestinal motility room, becoming one of the earliest departments in the city to diagnose and treat gastrointestinal motility disorders and functional gastrointestinal diseases. Over the past two years, it has introduced the latest high-resolution solid-state manometry 3D system from the U.S. company Medtronic, which can perform high-resolution esophageal manometry and anorectal manometry, 24-hour esophageal multichannel impedance and pH monitoring, electrogastrography, biofeedback, and other examinations, providing precise diagnosis and treatment for patients with gastrointestinal motility disorders. The department was the first specialty department in Shenzhen to carry out the diagnosis and treatment of neuroendocrine tumors. It has established a disease-specific outpatient clinic and taken the lead in carrying out comprehensive treatment through multidisciplinary collaboration. Department development is guided by the resolution of clinical problems, follows domestic and international research frontiers, and has formed distinctive research directions with professional strengths, including “research on artificial intelligence-assisted technology for the diagnosis and treatment of digestive system diseases,” “research on endoscopic diagnosis and treatment technologies,” “research on intestinal microecology,” and “research on abnormal brain-gut interactions.” The Department of Gastroenterology aims to provide high-quality medical services and regards the cultivation and education of talent as its responsibility. It is a master’s student training site for Peking University, Shantou University, Shenzhen University, and other universities, and for many years has undertaken the teaching and management of eight-year and five-year clinical programs, resident physicians, physicians receiving advanced training, and others. It emphasizes combining teaching with educating and cultivating people, has achieved fruitful results in teaching, has multiple provincial- and municipal-level backbone teachers, and has been rated an “Excellent Teaching Department” many times. In the future, the Department of Gastroenterology will strive for comprehensive development in medical care, teaching, and research, work to become a key specialty in Guangdong Province, and better serve patients. Featured subspecialty clinic hours: Inflammatory bowel disease: all day every Tuesday and Thursday morning Gastroesophageal reflux disease: all day every Wednesday Neuroendocrine tumors: Thursday afternoon.