Department of Pediatric Surgery

Kazuaki Shimada, Tomoro Hishiki, Shuichiro Uehara

Introduction

The Department of Pediatric Surgery was newly established in April 2016 to provide surgical treatment of pediatric cancers including a wide variety of diseases such as embryonal tumors comprising neuroblastomas, nephroblastomas, hepatoblastomas, mesenchymal tumors comprising Ewing sarcomas, rhabdomyosarcomas, and osteosarcomas.

Our team and what we do

The outpatient service of our department is open two days a week, Tuesday and Thursday, to treat newly diagnosed patients and to provide follow-up treatment for patients who received surgery. Daily rounds and ward conferences are held every morning and evening with pediatric oncologists from the Department of Pediatric Oncology.

We are great at performing surgical operations for younger children such as babies and infants, however, adolescents and young adults (AYA) patients can also receive surgical treatment in cooperation with professional doctors from adult departments. For example, in 2016, we performed bilateral lung metasectomy in pediatric patient with hepatoblastoma with doctors from the Department of Thoracic Surgery. Also, a distal pancreatectomy was conducted for patients with pancreatic solid pseudopapillary tumors with doctors from the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery.

Future prospects

We have just started activities for the surgical treatment of pediatric cancers. Our department continues to provide safer and more feasible surgical techniques including perioperative patient management for the future of children. The number of patients in our department is estimated to increase.