Gastrointestinal Surgery

The Gastrointestinal Surgery Department of Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine was founded in 1996. It reports 16 physicians, including five with senior titles, and 28 nurses, including six supervising and three provincial specialist nurses. It combines clinical care, teaching and research and is a Zhejiang key integrated Chinese–Western discipline, gastric cancer diagnosis and treatment research center, National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine Twelfth Five-Year key specialty and colorectal cancer education and screening base. It holds vice-chair status in the perioperative committee of the Chinese Association of Integrative Medicine and chair positions in Zhejiang committees for minimally invasive oncology, integrated perioperative medicine and multidisciplinary pelvic tumor care. The department performs open, laparoscopic and robotic surgery for gastrointestinal tumors, including laparoscopic radical gastric and colon cancer operations. It reports early adoption of natural-orifice specimen extraction surgery (NOSES) and transanal total mesorectal excision (TaTME) for colorectal tumors, receiving hospital new-technology second prizes in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Laparoscopic pelvic multivisceral resection (L-PE) with pelvic-floor reconstruction received a Zhejiang Chinese Medical University new-technology second prize. It also treats inflammatory bowel disease and abdominal wall hernia and performs metabolic and bariatric surgery. It reports over 800 gastrointestinal operations and over 100 complex pelvic tumor operations annually. Alongside oral Chinese herbal medicine, the department lists external methods including auricular seed acupressure, acupoint application, gua sha, moxibustion, cupping, meridian massage, fire-dragon cupping combined moxibustion and wrist–ankle acupuncture, with perioperative and enhanced-recovery experience. The department is a national standardized gastric cancer training base and gastrointestinal tumor MDT training demonstration center, chair unit of the Zhejiang–Jiangxi pelvic tumor multidisciplinary alliance, Zhejiang laparoscopy training base and participant in provincial tumor hyperthermia research. Its surgical teaching unit at Zhejiang Chinese Medical University's First Clinical Medical College has obtained master's and doctoral degree authorization. Staff report national, National Natural Science Foundation, health department and TCM administration projects. Examples include mechanisms of Shenhuang paste at the Shenque acupoint for chemotherapy-related intestinal dysfunction through Ghrelin/KLF4, development and clinical use of a new antegrade enema device for protective ileostomy, fire-dragon cupping combined moxibustion for postoperative gastrointestinal dysfunction based on meridian-based syndrome differentiation, and retention enema with Hongteng decoction and a new device for diversion colitis with spleen–kidney yang deficiency. The team reports invention and utility-model patents.