The department of gastric cancer and sarcomas, deriving from the department of abdominal surgery which was established in 1951, is one of the oldest departments in our cancer center. The department has established a sound team with staff members at various stages of career development including 4 professors, 2 associate professors, 4 attending physicians and 4 residents. There are a total of 68 beds in our department. We focus on the surgical treatment of gastric cancer, sarcoma and malignant melanoma. Meanwhile, we also perform of the clinical and basic research on the fields of the above tumors.
Around 800 gastric cancer patients received operations in our department every year. We work closely with a team of diagnostic radiologists, pathologists, medical oncologists, and radiation oncologists to provide treatments that are individually tailored to each patient. The survival rate is steadily improving every year with the state of the art multidisciplinary therapy. In the recent years, the operatability rate was improved by the preoperative chemotherapy. Meanwhile we also perform the gastrectomy with D2 dissection in the patients through the laparoscopy to achieve the fast recovery postoperatively. We have created the database of gastric cancer patients including important data on 4,000 patients treated at our department since 2000. In the retrospective studies, we found that the tumor size was also a very important risk factor for the patients with T3 gastric cancer. We also found the different clinicopathological parameters between the tumors on the upper third and the lower third of stomach. Furthermore, we were invited to write the review of “The Role of Surgery in the Treatment of Gastric Cancer” on the Journal of Surgical Oncology.
Our skilled surgeons operate on many kinds of very difficult and advanced primary or recurrent retroperitoneal tumors, as well as intra-abdominal tumors. The combination of branchytherapy and 3D wide resection has been adopted in the treatment of patients with sarcomas in the extremities. The novel technology won the Outstanding National Technology Award. Meanwhile, we have focused on the basic and clinical research of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs), including the mechanism of secondary resistance to Imatinib and the combined treatment the primary or recurrent GISTs patients with target therapy and surgery in the target era. We have published 20 scientific papers and book chapters, as well as a book on the GISTs. For our excellent work in the research of GISTs, we gained Science and Technology Award of Chinese Anti-Cancer Association and Shanghai Medical Science & Technology Award. Several clinical trials about GISTs are ongoing now. Prof. Yingqiang Shi is the vice president of National Sarcoma Committee.
We also attribute to the diagnosis and treatment of melanoma, one of the rare tumors in China. Our department performed the first inguinal dissection in China. Now we have established the database of 700 melanoma patients receiving surgical treatment in FUSCC since 1970.
Moreover, we have established the sister department relationship with Surgical Oncology, UM/Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, Miami and Surgical Oncology, MiMard Fillmore Hospital, State University of New York Buffalo.
