Source: The Sixth Affiliated Hospital
Written by: The Sixth Affiliated Hospital

Only need to register one time, the rectal cancer patients could be treated by our experts from thirteen rectal cancer related disciplines. The professors will provide the most personalized treatment strategies for patients, substantially shorten the treatment time, and improve the diagnosis and treatment of conditions. As South China's first medical center specifically focusing on diagnosis and treatment of rectal cancer, Rectal Cancer Center of The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University was officially launched on March 12, 2013. Nearly 80 medical staff from related disciplines attended the launch ceremony.
Professor Wang Jianping, Executive Vice President of Sun Yat-sen University and Chief Expert of Rectal Cancer Center of The Sixth Affiliated Hospital, indicated that rectal cancer has been generally considered as not only a single specialized disease, but a disease syndrome group that involves multiple disciplines. Therefore, physicians advocate that the diagnostic and therapeutic mode of rectal cancer should gradually transform from a single surgical treatment to surgical treatment based multi-disciplinary treatment, and the diagnosis of multi-disciplinary joint consultation from the inpatient department could directly shift to an earlier date to the clinic in order to enable more patients to enjoy the multi-disciplinary treatment (MDT) in outpatient department.

Lan Ping, President of The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, expressed that the establishment of the center is the embodiment of the concept of "patient-centered". The hospital will make concerted efforts to promote the development of the center. The obvious benefit is fairly shortening patients’ time from initial visit to definite diagnosis. Outpatient clinic of this center will be open from Monday to Friday. No more than five patients are admitted to visit in each period in order to ensure at least 30 minutes of clinic time for each patient. The most professional and detailed suggestion will be given to help out varied problems and the most effective treatment strategies will be made for every patient.

Currently, a standardized model for diagnosis and treatment of rectal cancer has been widely used in some esteemed rectal cancer centers around the world. First of all, endoscopists carry out screening in the high risk population to sift out suspicious patients, and then they took biopsy under digestive endoscopy to gain adequate tumor tissue for histological diagnosis. Clinical stage is assessed subsequently, using the image evaluation from the imaging departments including department of radiology, department of ultrasound and so on. Moreover, molecular diagnosis could be considered to clarify the genetic or epigenetic characteristics of each patient. According to the individual situation, specific treatment strategy is discussed and decided by doctors from multiple clinical departments such as department of colorectal surgery, department of chemotherapy and department of radiation oncology. Finally, patients are regularly followed up to assess treatment outcomes. Tremendous evidence has demonstrated that the multi-disciplinary collaboration model could significantly improve treatment outcome of rectal cancer patients.

Rectal Cancer Center of Gastrointestinal Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University was a multi-disciplinary diagnosis and treatment center led by the department of colorectal surgery and joined by related departments. The center aims to draw on the concept of "one-station service", adopt the form of joint clinic by multi-disciplinary experts, apply various domestically leading and advanced treatment technologies, and ensure that each rectal cancer patient could receive multidisciplinary specialty expert consultation by one registration. The center also has an official website for rectal cancer related content, including preventive care, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation. The website will be constantly updated to let more people understand how to prevent rectal cancer and how to screen for early diagnosis. The center has also established a Sina official microblogging, and all rectal cancer patients can communicate through this platform with the center staff.