67 years, 330,000 visits a year, and Asia’s first 10,000 robotic urological operations
To walk into the Urology Department of the Chinese PLA General Hospital in western Beijing is to step into what is, by robotic case volume, the leading urological surgery service in Asia. The department was founded in 1959 as one of the hospital's original clinical departments, and in 2020 it was reorganised into a dedicated Urology Medical Department spanning seven PLA medical centres in the Beijing area, under the leadership of Academician Zhang Xu — the Chinese Academy of Sciences member generally regarded as the originator of China's retroperitoneal laparoscopic surgery system. Today the department treats more than 330,000 outpatient visits a year and performs more than 10,000 operations a year across six clinical subspecialties and one research institute. In December 2021 it became Asia's first urology department to complete 10,000 robotic surgical operations. In the 2024 Fudan Hospital Specialty Reputation Rankings, the department was named China's leading urology unit.
The department's role in the country is not just clinical. It has been the national training centre for Chinese urological laparoscopic and robotic surgery since the 2000s — the retroperitoneal approach that Academician Zhang Xu developed has become the standard technique used in Chinese urology — and its alumni include department heads at major urology centres across China, Europe, and Asia. The department has won two National Science and Technology Progress Awards (second class), four Chinese Medical Association First Prizes, and one Ho Leung Ho Lee Science and Technology Progress Award, and has published more than 40 national and ministerial-level research projects.
What the place actually looks like
Where most urology departments in the world are organised around one or two flagship procedures (radical prostatectomy, partial nephrectomy), the PLA General Hospital department is organised around the full chain of urological disease. Its six clinical subspecialties are: urinary stone surgery; kidney surgery; bladder surgery; prostate surgery; adrenal surgery; and andrology — supported by a dedicated urology research institute and by satellite urology departments at the six other PLA medical centres in the Beijing area. Its robotic surgery programme covers the full range of urological operations: radical prostatectomy, partial and radical nephrectomy, radical cystectomy with intracorporeal urinary diversion, adrenalectomy, pyeloplasty, and — in a Chinese first in 2018 — robotic kidney transplantation.
That structural choice — a single department that handles every kind of urological disease in every kind of patient, with the largest robotic urology programme in Asia attached — is the operational reason the department has been able to lead the Chinese field for more than a decade. A patient who walks in with what looks like a routine kidney tumour can be worked up, operated on robotically, and followed up by the same team, with a referral to the adrenal or bladder subspecialist handled internally rather than across hospitals.
Why it became No.1
Three factors explain the department's grip on the Fudan ranking. First, the historical first-mover position: the department was founded in 1959, one of the original departments of the hospital, and was given a head start in building the national laparoscopic and robotic training infrastructure under Academician Zhang Xu from 2008 onwards. Second, an unmatched robotic case volume: in December 2021 the department became Asia's first urology centre to complete 10,000 robotic operations, and in June 2024 Academician Zhang Xu's team performed the world's first remote robotic prostatectomy across two continents, operating a Chinese robotic system in Beijing from a console in Rome. Third, and most distinctive internationally, the department's retroperitoneal laparoscopic technique — which Academician Zhang Xu developed in the 2000s — is now the standard approach used in Chinese urology and is taught to visiting urologists from Europe, Asia, and Africa.
That history matters for international patients because the department is the only place in Asia where a complex urological operation can be performed robotically by a team that has done more of the same case than any other team on the continent, and — in selected cases — by a remote surgical system that was pioneered here.
What this means for international patients
For a foreign patient considering urological surgery in China, the PLA General Hospital Urology Department is the place that handles the cases the rest of the country refers out. The department runs an international patient office and a multilingual case-coordination service across its seven Beijing-area medical centres. It is the host of the PLA Urology Society and of the national training programme in laparoscopic and robotic urology, which means its clinical protocols are the de facto standard for urological surgery in China and a reference for the wider Asian region.
The department's specialty areas are anchored to internationally recognised strengths: robotic radical prostatectomy (where its annual case volume is the largest in Asia), robotic partial nephrectomy (where its nephron-sparing protocols are used in teaching hospitals across China), robotic radical cystectomy (where its intracorporeal diversion technique is a national reference), and robotic kidney transplantation (where it performed China's first case in 2018). The department's main campus is at 28 Fuxing Road, Haidian District, Beijing. This profile is editorial information based on the sources linked below, not treatment advice; individual outcomes depend on the tumour stage, the patient's comorbidities, the team, and the timing of presentation.