Gastroenterology

Department profile: The Department of Gastroenterology has 19 physicians, including 5 with senior titles, 5 with associate-senior titles, 5 with intermediate titles, and 2 postdoctoral fellows. All hold master's degrees or higher, and 90% hold doctoral degrees. The nursing team has 46 staff, including 7 nurse supervisors, 31 nurses, and 8 nursing assistants. Gastroenterology consultant Professor Hu Pinjin and department director Professor Gao Xiang are renowned experts in gastroenterology with extensive clinical experience and important academic positions in the Asian Organization for Crohn's and Colitis, the Chinese Medical Association, and the Guangdong Medical Association. Gastroenterology is a Guangdong provincial clinical key specialty development project, a key specialty of the Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, and a referral platform for difficult digestive diseases in Guangdong. Under the leadership of Professor Hu Pinjin and Director Gao Xiang, it has built a specialty with advanced medical technology covering all internal digestive diseases of the esophagus, stomach, intestines, liver, gallbladder, and pancreas, with distinctive strengths in inflammatory bowel disease (ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease), small-bowel disease diagnosis and endoscopic treatment, and gastrointestinal motility. It has been named a “strongest department in Guangdong” for many consecutive years, and its inflammatory bowel disease volume ranks among the highest worldwide. Its diagnostic and treatment scope includes acute and chronic gastritis, gastroesophageal reflux, gastroduodenal ulcer, gastrointestinal bleeding, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, intestinal tuberculosis, functional gastrointestinal disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, acute and chronic diarrhea, unexplained weight loss, constipation, and liver, biliary, and pancreatic diseases of various causes. Inflammatory bowel disease is its most distinctive subspecialty. It is one of China's largest IBD centers and received the first group designation as a national regional IBD diagnosis and treatment center. It undertakes dozens of international multicenter IBD new-drug projects. In 2017, the only professional Chinese journal in the field, Chinese Journal of Inflammatory Bowel Disease, was established at the hospital, with Professor Hu Pinjin as editor-in-chief and Professor Gao Xiang among the editorial-board members. Since 2020, Gastroenterology and Surgery have jointly established a Small-Bowel Disease Center with a strong clinical, endoscopic, and multidisciplinary team; small-bowel endoscopy treatment is nationally leading. Specialty diagnosis and treatment: (1) Inflammatory bowel disease. Since 2012, to address complex IBD needs, the IBD Center of the Sixth Hospital was formed at the initiative of Professor Hu Pinjin, with Gastroenterology and Colorectal Surgery as its core and Anorectal Surgery, Radiology, Pathology, Nutrition, and Nursing as collaborators. It was one of the earliest domestic multidisciplinary teams dedicated to IBD. The subspecialty has 96 authorized beds, discharges 6,000 IBD patients annually on average, and sees more than 10,000 specialty outpatients annually. Its IBD-MDT discusses difficult cases every week, with more than 200 cases discussed annually, providing multidisciplinary advice to many patients. Through team collaboration, the hospital as corresponding-author institution drafted the Chinese Consensus on Diagnosis and Treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (Guangzhou, 2012) and the Consensus on Establishing Quality-Control Indicators for IBD Diagnosis and Treatment Centers in China (2016), and participated in all domestic IBD consensus documents. The Individualized Strategy for Thiopurine Treatment in Chinese IBD Patients was named a Guangzhou Clinical Specialty Technology in 2022. (2) New diagnostic and treatment technologies in small-bowel endoscopy. Gastroenterology and the Small-Bowel Endoscopy Department provide endoscopic diagnosis and treatment of small-bowel disease. The department was among the first in China to perform endoscopic incision and dilation of small-bowel strictures, balloon dilation of small-bowel strictures, endoscopic hemostasis, endoscopic resection of benign small-bowel tumors and polyps, endoscopic treatment of small-bowel hemangiomas, endoscopic closure of fistulas, and endoscopic incision and drainage of abscesses. Its small-bowel endoscopy volume and docking rate (complete small-bowel examination rate) are nationally leading. More than 1,000 small-bowel endoscopic examinations and treatments are completed annually, with endoscopic treatment accounting for 24.91%. Research strength: The department conducts basic and applied research on IBD pathogenesis, drug development, individualized and precision treatment, and complication management. Over the past 5 years it has led dozens of vertical and horizontal projects and published more than 40 SCI papers in leading specialty journals including Gastroenterology, Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, and Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics. It has received 3 authorized invention patents, and several research results have been cited by Chinese IBD guidelines.