Prof. Dr. med. Dr. rer. nat. Matthias Hoffmann

Clemenshospital Münster is a specialised hospital in Münster with a particular focus on the treatment of oncological diseases. To this end, the Münster Alliance Against Cancer (MAgKs) was founded there as an oncology centre certified by the German Cancer Society.
In the Department of General, Visceral and Vascular Surgery, all surgical procedures are performed, including extensive tumour operations affecting several organs. The department specialises in minimally invasive surgery. Particular specialisations of the Department of General and Visceral Surgery are centres certified by the German Cancer Society and the German Society for General and Visceral Surgery. Patients at these centres are discussed by experts from all the specialist disciplines involved in the weekly tumour board. These include the Clemenshospital/Portal 10 Münster Colorectal Cancer Centre, the Münster Pancreatic Cancer Centre, the Münster Thyroid Centre as a centre of excellence for thyroid and parathyroid surgery, as well as the oncological focus for liver and biliary tract surgery.

The Pancreatic Cancer Centre Münster treats patients with benign and malignant diseases of the pancreas. In addition to the established diagnostic procedures, all standard surgical procedures are performed. Furthermore, we have many years of experience with operations for advanced pancreatic carcinomas, including resection of the coeliac trunk or the portal vein.

Due to Prof. Hoffmann's many years of experience in liver and liver transplant surgery, the surgical treatment of liver tumours is a particular focus of the department. All procedures from limited resection of liver tumours to extended liver resections and multi-stage surgical procedures (in-situ split liver resection, central "open-book" liver resection, portal vein ligation) are regularly used. These can be combined with a particularly high level of expertise in the field of interventional radiology, where the destruction of liver tumours by radiofrequency ablation, but also transarterial chemoembolisation (TACE) and interventional portal vein embolisation are used.
Endocrine surgery is a supra-regional focus of the department with over 600 thyroid operations per year. Patients with thyroid nodules, thyroid carcinomas and inflammatory thyroid diseases, as well as parathyroid diseases, are routinely operated on. The complication rates such as recurrent paresis and hypocalcaemia are well below the specified limits. Neuromonitoring of the recurrent laryngeal nerve is used in every operation. Intraoperative parathyroid hormone determination and minimally invasive video-assisted surgical techniques are standard in parathyroid surgery.

A large number of operations for colon and rectal cancer are performed at the clinic with very low complication rates in the DKG-certified Colon Cancer Centre in close cooperation with specialist gastroenterological practices. Radical oncological bowel resections through to proctocolectomies with an ileo-anal pouch are performed using the laparoscopic technique as standard.