Bridging clinical medicine with innovative scientific research

The present issue of Annals of Pancreatic Cancer is a special one co-edited by Dr. Yingbin Liu, Chair of the Department of General Surgery and dedicated to the Eighth Xinhua International Surgical Forum.

Shanghai Xin Hua Hospital is a tertiary teaching hospital affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. After 60 years since its establishment, Xinhua hospital has evolved into a comprehensive leading medical center which has more than 50 departments and 2,000 staffs. Xinhua hospital has also been included in the 2019 Healthcare Survey and has been ranking among the nation's leading hospitals for welcoming queer patients and employees. The Xinhua Hospital Department of Surgery has a tradition of excellence in clinical care, research and teaching. The Department of Surgery is also a high-volume center and performs about 11,000 surgeries each year. The Department of Surgery has been regarded as one of the country’s most prestigious academic surgical center for several key reasons, including high degree of sub-specialization, multidisciplinary care, minimal invasive surgical program, emphasis on innovative clinical research. All the above mentioned features allow us to provide long-term high quality care for our patients as well as to identify ways to improve the quality, safety and results of surgical care.

Xinhua International Surgical Forum is a convention hosted each year in Shanghai by Xinhua Hospital. The aim of this forum is to allow surgeons to continually sharpen their minds, skills and provide better medical care for patients. For the past ten years, the forum has successfully brought together world leading surgeons and researchers from around the world who are engaged in using cutting edge surgical techniques, together with members of Chinese Society of Surgeons, provided an inspirational program for all the attendees.

Pancreatic cancer is currently one of the most fatal diseases with poor prognosis. With the rapidly development of socioeconomic conditions and changing of lifestyle, the annual incidence and mortality rate of pancreatic cancer is increasing in China. GLOBOCAN 2012 estimates that cases in China account for 19.45% (65,727/337,872) of all newly diagnosed pancreatic cancer and 19.27% (63,662/330,391) of all deaths from pancreatic cancer worldwide. The Chinese Society of Pancreatic Surgeons have taken serious measures on fighting against this dismal disease. They have not only developed control programs focusing on nationwide screening and prevention programs, but also early diagnosis and treatment procedures for pancreatic cancer in China. Professor Yupei Zhao, a member of Chinese Academy of Science and Chairman of the Chinese Society of Pancreatic Surgeons, plays a key role in these programs and achievements. Additionally, Chinese Society of Pancreatic Surgeons has issued a series of clinical trials on minimal invasive approaches including laparoscopic and robotic surgery in treating pancreatic cancer. Their largest case series results showed, compared with traditional open surgery, minimally invasive surgery causes less blood loss, fewer complications and shorter time of hospital stay but similar overall survival. Last but not least, to improve pancreatic cancer outcomes in China, there are much more needs to be done in the future.

We also thank Dr. Wei Gong from the Department of Surgery, Shanghai Xinhua Hospital for his time and effort. Special thanks to the members of Chinese Society of Pancreatic Surgeons, editor Kathryn and all the people who helped to publish this issue.

Acknowledgments

Funding: None.

Footnote

Provenance and Peer Review: This article was commissioned by the editorial office, Annals of Pancreatic Cancer, for the series “The 8th Annual International Surgery Forum”. The article did not undergo external peer review.

Conflicts of Interest: Both authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/apc.2019.09.02). The series “The 8th Annual International Surgery Forum” was commissioned by the editorial office without any funding or sponsorship. YL and WG served as the unpaid Guest Editors of the series. The authors have no other conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical Statement: The authors are accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Yingbin Liu

Wei Gong