In the cross-cutting areas of information science and life science,a subdiscipline—digital medicine is established.As a new subdiscipline,several problems need to be resolved for the development of digital medicine. Paying attention to actual benefits and fulfilling the need in clinical practice are the demand for digital nedicine,and they are also the spirit of translational medicine. Deeply rooted in clinical practice and oriated by the requirement of clinicians are helpful for a healthier development of digital medicine research.

Since the rate of functional recovery has not been satisfactory in spite o f a significant increase in the survival rate in the clinical o rthopaedic surgery in recent years,researches on the related basic theo ries should be enhanced.Basic researches on orthopaedic surgery are so exten sive that they have resulted in new developments,such as new applications of Digitized Virtual Human in teaching,research and clinical treatm ent,the shift from real measuring to fini te element analyzing method in biome chanical researches,molecule-bio logical exploring in early trauma treatment ,basic pharmacological research on osteoporosis,and efforts to find new ma-terials for trauma rehabilitation w ith tissue engineering theory and te chnology.

Human anatomy is an ancient discipline, hence very difficult to choose a research project for its development. In order to meet the urgent demand in the development of clinical science, we have ventured to blaze a new trail to develop a system of modern clinical anatomical research. Looking back the developmental history of science and technology, it could be found that the development of technology often preceded that of basic researches, thus it was frequently the avant-garde of theoretical breakthroughs. To make any advancement in a conventional scientific discipline, it is imperative to find out faultlessly the link point between it and the new technology. In the present commentary, we shall expatiate innovations in clinical anatomy, and to expound some opinions related to microsurgical anatomy, clinical biomechanics, tomographic imaging anatomy, tissue engineering, minimal traumatic surgical anatomy, digital human and digital anatomy.

Digitized Virtual Human is a new scientific name for most of us, so it is necessary to elucidate its scientific meanings, general situation, research actuality and future prospect. Remarkable benefits have been obtained from Visible Human Project (VHP) in the United States of America, and it has progressed into the research field concerning virtual physical human and physiome. It is a cutting edge scientific field combining life science and information technology in research on visible, virtual and controllable human body. There is an immense amount of indepth theories and technologies to be explored before it is practically mature. Whereas it is very valuable for medical research. Problems in regard to Virtual Chinese Human (VCH) were discussed in 174th Xiang Shan Scientific Conference which was held in 2001, and then the research on VCH formally inargurated in China. The research project has been in rapid progress, and up to now, there are already four datasets reported in our country since then. Image processing and virtual reality technology applied in Visible Human have been in sound development. In the future research, we should pay attention to the quality of dataset and the pertinence of application.

Objective To study the anatomy of the hepatic arteries and imitate the way to deal with the hepatic arteries in the living liver transplantation of the left lateral lobe.Methods Thirty normal adult livers were anatomyzed and 30 casting models of livers were observed. The lengths, diameters and distributaries of the hepatic arteries were described Results The blood supply of the left lateral region came from proper hepatic artery, left hepatic artery and middle hepatic artery. The aberrant arteries included left inferior phrenic artery, left gastric artery and right gastric artery. They branched to supply the upper segment and the inferior segment Conclusion There are five types of hepatic arteries to supply the left liver lobe. The anatomy of hepatic arteries should be studied and a reasonable approach to gain a liver graft should be designed before transplantation. The hepatic arteries should be dealt with so as to anastomose with recipient hepatic arteries.

40 pairs of lower limbs of adult cadavers were dissected, vasa circumflexa femoris lateralis were measured and observation was made on their anatomical relation to musculus rectus femoris and musculus tensor fasciae latae. The important points of the surgical anatomy were described.In most cases the arteria circumflexa femoris lateralis were found to arise from arteria femoris profunda (89.7%). The average length of the arterial trunks was 16 mm and the diameter at their bases was 5.5 mm. The branching of this artery may be divided into three types: ascending-descending type (77.5%), ascending-transversedescending type and transverse-descending type.The average length of the ascending branches was 87 mm and the diameter at their bases was 3.5 mm. This branch was accompanied by one or two veins. The ascending branch may be utilized together with M. tensor fascia latae flap for grafting. The distal end of the vessel could be freely brought to the head and neck of the femur, thus rendering a possibility of utilizing it for the treatment of ischemic necrosis and non-union due to fracture of the neck of the femur.The average length of the descending branches was 200 mm and with a diameter of 3.5 mm, the veins that accompanied them were slightly larger in diametes. At the area in front of the femur, the descending branch could be used both as receptor as well as donor for transplantation. As a donor, the distal end of the descending branch could be transferred to the shaft or lower portion of the femur for the treatment of non-union fracture.There were two neuro-vascular bundles in M. rectus femoris. One of which was not suitable for vascular anastomosis due to its shortness and small caliber, the other one was the main neuro-vascular bundle of M. rectus femoris.The artery pedicle that supplied the M. tensor fascia latae averaged 50 mm in length and 3.0 mm in diameter and was accompanied with one or two larger veins. M. tensor fascia latae may provide a relatively large dermo-vascular flap, its distal part and ilio-tibial tract could also be sutured to the superior margin of the patella to re-enforce the tracting strength and to correct the pulling direction of the patella, and the extension function of the knee joint would be reasonably restored.

For the purpose of offering data for reference to surgical replacement of the esophagus, the vessels of the small intestine, the internal thoracic and the superiot thyroid arteries of 50 adult cadavers were dissected and their lengths and diameters were measured.1. There were an average of 5.4 arteries supplying the small intestine, their diameters ranged from 1.5 to 10.0mm and more than 50％ of them exceeded 3.0mm. The average length from the 1st to 6 th intestinal arteries ranged between 23.5 to 45.5mm and more than 50％ of them exceeded 30.0mm. The 3rd intestinal artery was the longest (averaged 45.5mm) with larger lumen, an ideal one for anastomosis.22％ of the arteries appeared as short trunks, at least one or two of their branches was suitable in length and size for utilization during operation.The average grading of tile arterial arches of the small intestine was 2.7 grades. The lumens of the arterial arches of the 1st and 2 nd grades were larger than those of the 3 rd grade and the rest, the jority of the latter were smaller than 0.9 mm in diameter. Therefor, the preservation of the 2 nd grade arterial arch will be important during the dissection of the small intestine.2. The average total length of the jejunum and ileum was 530.6 cm (ranged from 328.0 to 765.0cm). The segments of the small intestine supplied by individual intestinal arteries increased its length gradually from the 1st to the 8 th. The preservation of the arterial arches of a calibre 1.0 mm in diameter with their collateral circulation intact is of great importance at the upper part of the jejunum. The proportion of the lengths of straightened mesentery to that of the straightened,, intestinal loop was 1:2.6.3. The number of the intestinal veins averaged 2.9 branches which was less than that of the arteries. The approximate ratio o7 the numbers of veins to arteries was 1 to 2, and usually the 1st branch of the vein accompanied the artery.4. The average diameter of the superior thyroid arteries before branching measured 3.1 mm on e left and 2.8 mm on the right, and was an ideal one for anastomosis with the artery of the small intestinal loop.5. The average diameter of the internal thoracic vessels at the 2nd and 3rd intercostal space ranged from 2.6 to 2.8 mm in areteries and 2.4 to 3.1 mm in veins. The diameter of the arteries were approximately the same as that of the small intestine, but the veins appeared much smaller. Therefore the internal thoracic arteries are of choice for anastomosis with the small intestinal arteries during operation when an isolated small intestinal loop replaces the esophagus; but as to veins, external jugular or anterior jugular are more suitable.

For the need of lymphovenous anastomosis in microsurgery, the following investigations were carried out: the anatomy of the superficial lymphatic system of the limbs (by direct injection method on 40 cadaverous specimens); mimic surgical incisions (on 2 specimens) and the criteria of searching and differentiating the small lymph channels from the small blood vessels and nerves (on 29 cases of limb operations).1. The limb superficial lymph vessels are arranged in two layers, those in the superficial layer are smaller in size but large in number than that in the deeper layer. The large collecting lymph vessels run alongside the chief superficial vein.2. The location, course, number and diameter of the superficial lymph vessels were studied.3. The morphological criteria of differentiating the small lymph vessels from the minute blood vessels and nerves under surgical microscope were suggested.4. The relationships between the distribution of the lymphatic valves and the site of surgical approach were discussed. The valves were found onlyat the distal portion of the "lymph-pearl" and the proximal part of the "pearl" will be the suitable site for surgical incision.

Digital medical technology pioneered the three dimensional (3D) era of the surgery.The 3D reconstruction and visualization technology made a breakthrough of the bottleneck of clinical diagnosis and therapy of the biliary surgery,and are widely used for the treatment of biliary disease such as hepatolithiasis and hilar cholangiocarcinoma,and achieved digital anatomy,procedural diagnosis and visualized surgery,just as provide a 3D Ⅹ-ray vision to surgeons.With the development of the digital medical technology and the wide application of 3D laparoscopy and robotic system,biliary tract surgery access to a 3D era.