[Thought on development of minimally invasive gastrointestinal surgery in China]

Laparoscopic surgery for gastrointestinal diseases had a remarkable progress in the past 20 years. Laparoscopic surgery for colon cancer is adopted worldwide by increasingly surgeons based on the evidence from randomized controlled studies. Minimally invasive surgery is also adopted as alternative procedure for early gastric cancer. The standardization and spreading of the minimally invasive technique for gastrointestinal surgery is also being implemented efficiently in China. However, how to innovate the new technique and improve the new instrumentation for minimally invasive surgery is still a problem which we have to confront in the current situation. But we believe that with the great efforts of gastrointestinal surgeons, the widespread adoption of minimally invasive gastrointestinal surgery would surely take place in the near future.