On Feb 9, the Thoracic Surgery Research Institute and the Chest Wall Disease Diagnosis and Treatment Center of Guangdong Second People's Hospital were established in Guangzhou.

As the first chest wall surgery hospital in the world, Guangdong Second People's Hospital will serve as a comprehensive chest wall disease treatment institution integrating medicine, education, and research. It is also the largest and most professional chest wall disease treatment center in the world, and will be built into an international first-class chest wall disease treatment center.

On Feb 2, Wang Wenlin, chairman of the Chinese Federation of Chest Wall Surgery, director of the Chest Wall Research Institute, and director of the Chest Wall Surgery Research Institute of Guangdong Second People's Hospital, led a team to remove the chest wall tumor and reshape the chest of a citizen surnamed Lin from Xinjiang.

Lin has been treated in Xinjiang and Shanghai hospitals but doctors were afraid to operate on her. However, with the close cooperation of the Department of Anesthesiology, Wang completed the operation in just two hours.

"Thoracic surgery is lagging behind in terms of subspecialties," said Wang, who also noted that as one of the subspecialties of thoracic surgery, chest wall surgery includes chest wall tumors, chest wall trauma, deformities, infection, and defects.

The incidence of chest wall malformations is higher than 1 percent. "This is a fairly large population of patients, larger than all patients with intrathoracic disease combined. But because most thoracic surgeons aren't able to operate on the chest wall, these patients who suffer from the disease are difficult to get treatment," Wang said.

Doctors perform surgery on a patient's chest wall. [Photo/Yangcheng Evening News]