New skills take surgery to higher level

Professor Liu Lunxu (right) from West China Hospital of Sichuan University performs lung cancer surgery together with his colleagues. Liao Zhilin / for China Daily

It may seem like science fiction when surgeons make three or four small incisions, each 1.5 cm long, on the chest wall of a patient to remove lung cancer tumors. But it routinely occurs at West China Hospital of Sichuan University in the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu.

The technique is called video assisted thoracoscopic surgery and was first performed by Robert McKenna, a surgeon at CedarsSinai Medical Center in the United States in 1992. It avoids extensive damage to the chest wall that occurs in a traditional thoracotomy, where an incision of 30 cmcan often result in traumatic injuries, complications and a longer recovery period.

Surgery is the main method of treatment for lung cancer, which claims 400,000 lives each year in China.

Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery requires higher surgical skills and also effective methods to stop bleeding in cases where massive hemorrhages occur.

"In 2008, video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery accounted for less than 20 percent of all the lung cancer operations in the United States. Only a handful of surgeons in Chinamastered the technique," said Liao Zhilin, an information officer with West China Hospital.

With the support of the National Science Foundation of China, a team of surgeons led by professor Liu Lunxu started learning how to apply video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery at the beginning of this century.

"Surgeons like Liu in West China Hospital can perform video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery and stop bleeding in cases of massive hemorrhage," Liao said.

It was thought that surgeons could not resort to video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery when a lung tumor was more than 5 cm long. But Liu and his team have successfully operated on many such cases.

"The longest tumor was 12 cm," Liao said.

The history of West China Hospital dates back to 1892, when church missionary groups from Canada, Britain and the United States set up Renji Hospital and Cunren Hospital in Chengdu. West China Hospital emerged from both those hospitals to become the largest hospital in China and the best in western China.

The International Hospital of Sichuan Province is one of its subsidiaries and has ready access to all the advanced technology and expertise of West China Hospital's medical staff.

"Routine as well as specialized medical care is provided at the international hospital. The outpatient clinic operates daily to provide consultations for most health problems, annual checkups and, if necessary, direct admission to the inpatient department," Liao said.