Blocked for a Month: Shuguang Hospital Reopens a Digestive Passage for a Cancer Patient Using Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine

Shuguang Hospital treated a 58-year-old woman with advanced cancer who had an intestinal stent implanted years earlier for obstruction caused by a duodenal tumor. The lesion re-stenosed months after the procedure and she had been completely unable to eat orally for the past month. The hepatology team led by chief physician Yu Zhuo used comprehensive traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatment to improve her general condition, and joined the endoscopy center team led by chief physician Yu Jinzhong for a multidisciplinary consultation, finally settling on endoscopic ultrasound-guided gastroenterostomy (EUS-GE).

Under real-time endoscopic ultrasound guidance, the technique creates an entirely new digestive pathway between the stomach wall and the small intestine beyond the obstruction, integrating gastrointestinal endoscopy, endoscopic ultrasound and X-ray fluoroscopy in a multimodal imaging approach. It is one of the most difficult procedures in interventional digestive endoscopy. The team performed precise puncture and deployed a dedicated stent; intraoperative imaging showed the new channel was unobstructed and the obstruction was relieved on the spot.

It is the first such procedure in China's TCM sector completed independently by the hospital's own team, filling a gap in minimally invasive interventional technology in TCM institutions.