Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery

The Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery at Peking University People's Hospital was established before the liberation of China. After more than 90 years of development, it has become one of the most renowned hepatobiliary surgery departments in China, functioning as a comprehensive medical center integrating medical care, education, training, and research. The department currently has 68 beds (including 8 ICU beds), 50 physicians(including 8 professors of medicine, 8 professors of medicine, 7 associate professors of medicine, 2 attending physicians, and 3 resident physicians), and 31 nurses(including 2 head nurses, and 6 senior nurses).

As one of the earliest departments in China to treat portal hypertension and liver cancer, the department has accumulated extensive experience in surgeries involving the liver/bile duct/pancreas/spleen. It has also trained a large number of hepatobiliary surgeons for hospitals across the country. In the 1960s, Professor Huang Cuiting pioneered the use of splenorenal shunt surgery for portal hypertension in China. Professor Du Ruyu, together with Professor Leng Xisheng, developed the theory of fluid substance delivery in portal hypertension, which has become a classical explanation for its pathogenesis.

Under the leadership of Professor Zhu Jiye, the current director, the department began performing liver transplantation in 2000. To date, more than 1,000 liver transplantations have been performed, with a one-year survival rate exceeding 90%, placing the department among the top-tier centers in China. The department is capable of performing various complex types of liver transplantation, including re-transplantation/reduced-size transplantation/combined liver and kidney transplantation. Extensive basic research has also been conducted in organ transplantation and liver cancer, focusing on the co-stimulatory pathway, immune tolerance induction by T cell regulation, and mechanisms of liver cancer recurrence/metastasis.

The staff of our department provides comprehensive services focusing on the diagnosis and management of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), liver resection, chemoembolization, radiofrequency (RF) ablation, laparoscopic/robotic surgical procedures, and liver transplantation. Currently, the department performs around 500 liver resections annually. In 2013, it was designated as a National Key Specialty in surgery, and in 2014, its laboratory was recognized as a Beijing Key Research Lab for fundamental studies on liver cirrhosis and liver cancer.

The department maintains close collaborations with top institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic, the University of Michigan Hospital, and the University of Minnesota Hospital. Through interdisciplinary cooperation with departments such as hepatology/oncology/pathology/interventional radiology, we provide multidisciplinary, state-of-the-art care tailored to each patient’s individual needs.