Wu Mengchao

At 13:02 on May 22, 2021, Wu Mengchao passed away in Shanghai at the age of 99.

Wu was born in Minqing County, Fuzhou, China. In 1940, he was admitted to 同济附中 (tong ji fu zhong), a high school affiliated to Tongji University. In 1949, he graduated from Tongji University School of Medicine in Shanghai. He was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1991 and was awarded the State Preeminent Science and Technology Award in 2005, China's highest scientific prize, by President Hu Jintao. He was the founding director of Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital affiliated to the Second Military Medical University in Shanghai. On January 1, 2019, Wu retired.

On January 14, 2019, Wu Mengchao retired at the age of 97.

In 2018, he went on a reality show called the Readers in China. He was 96 years old at that time but still performed three surgeries a week. And his fingers were permanently deformed due to those hours spending in operation rooms.

On January 9, 2006, Wu Mengchao received China Awards for Science and Technology, the highest national award for scientists. He is the first doctor who won this prize. And he used all of the 6 million RMB awarded by the state.

In 1996, Wu Mengchao established the "Wu Mengchao Medical Foundation for Hepatobiliary Surgery", the first special fund in the field of liver surgery in China. At present, it has developed into the "Shanghai Wu Mengchao Medical Science and Technology Foundation". It currently has fund of 15 million RMB.

In 1993, Shanghai East Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital was established led by Wu after 37 years of development, starting with the three-member hepatobiliary surgery team in 1956.

Wu's achievements gradually went overseas. In September, 1979, Wu was invited to deliver a report at the 28th International Society of Surgery Congress in San Francisco. Wu reported 181 cases of primary liver cancer treated by surgical resection from January 1960 to December 1977 with a low mortality rate of only 8.8%, which shocked the participating experts. At the meeting, Wu Mengchao was inducted as a member of the International Surgical Society, as a recognition of the international medical community for liver surgery in China.

In 1975, he removed the largest hepatic cavernous hemangioma ever removed in China and abroad, weighing 18 kg, in a single incision.

In 1963, he managed to operate on the middle lobe of the liver that is at the “heart” of the liver and is surrounded by numerous blood vessels, often called forbidden zone in hepatic surgery. This is the first successful lobectomy of the middle liver in the world.

After that, Wu led the group to produce many cast modelings of the liver. After observation, research, and 200 cases of clinical exploration, Wu understood the deconstructed structure of the human liver. In 1960, a creative view of five lobes and four segments of liver anatomy was proposed by him tailoring to Chinese people.

In 1960, he performed the first successful liver surgery ever in Changhai Hospital, successfully removing liver cancer from a female patient.

In 1960, Wu proposed the “Five-lobe and Four-segment” theory for the first time. This is a theory he developed after carefully studying almost 200 specimen of human livers from patients  of different age, sex and health conditions. By this time, he had figured out the layout of hepatic artery, hepatic vein, portal vein and bile duct in livers. He also had a grasp of the anatomy of a healthy liver.

He suggested that the traditional theory that separates human livers into only left and right lobes needed to be updated, and established a new anatomical theory based on vascular distributions in livers and intrahepatic fissure. Guided by this new way of thinking, he proposed the “Five-lobe and Four-segment" theory in 1960 for the first time and published Observation on Intrahepatic Anatomy of Normal People in China(《我国正常人肝内解剖的观察》), Anatomical Observation of Normal Human Intrahepatic Bile Duct and Hepatic Artery(《正常人肝内胆管和肝动脉的解剖学观察》)etc., and constructed a brand new theory of human liver anatomy. This is the first time for a Chinese scholar to propose an explicit explanation of “Five-lobe and Four-segment” theory in the international community of academia.

This very theory was what guided the first liver surgery Wu conducted in March 1960. In June 1960, the research team of three represented by Wu reported the new theory on the seventh meeting of Chinese Medical Association held in Zhengzhou, and was recognized by the end of the conference as a major breakthrough in liver anatomy theory in China and also an innovation of great value in clinical treatments.

In 1958, Wu wanted to find a theoretical breakthrough, and there were no books on hepatic surgery in Chinese. So he translated and published an English edition of Introduction to Hepatic Surgery by Henry Gans. This is the first book on hepatic surgery that laid the theoretical foundation for developing liver surgery in China.

In 1958, Wu led a research team of three, with Zhang Xiaohua and Hu Hongkai being group members. They set their aim at improving the situation of liver surgeries in China. And the first problem they had to tackle was to create models of human livers. The team had spent over 120 days and tried more than 20 materials before they finally succeeded.

After graduation, he was assigned to be a pediatrician at the university, but his dream of becoming a surgeon led him to turn the offer down and look for opportunities elsewhere. In 1949, he joined The First Affiliated Hospital (Changhai Hospital) of People's Medical College of East China Military Region (Second Military Medical University now), and became a military surgeon. In the hospital, he was inspired by Doctor Qiu Fazu.

In 1940, Wu returned to China for participating in anti-Japanese activities during the Second World War. But he was unable to go to the frontline, so he enrolled in High School Affiliated to Tongji University and determined to “study to save the country” by treating wounded soldiers and raising funds. In 1943, he was admitted to the Tongji University School of Medicine in Shanghai and graduated in 1949.

Dr. Wu Mengchao (Chinese: 吴孟超; 31 August 1922  – 22 May 2021), was a Chinese surgeon and a medical scientist who specialized in hepatobiliary surgery. He was also known as the "Father of Chinese Hepatobiliary Surgery".

The minor planet 17606 Wumengchao was named after him.