The Department of Hematology of West China Hospital, Sichuan University, has a long history. In 1955, Professor Deng Chang'an, a famous hematologist and medical educator, established the hematology ward, which was one of the components of internal medicine at that time and treated the patients with blood diseases from Internal Medicine Department. Organized in 1973 and formally established in 1986, it was awarded the title of "Key Clinical Specialty of Sichuan Provincial Department of Health" in 2008, and won the title of "National Key Clinical Specialty Construction Project of the Ministry of Health" in 2011. In recent years, it ranked from the seventh to the ninth in a row according to the best clinical specialty ranking released by Fudan University and the best sci-tech influence specialty ranking released by Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.
The Department of Hematology has the programs granting Ph.D. degree and master degree approved by the Ministry of Education; it is the Training Base of Hematology Specialist Residents evaluated by the Ministry of Health, and Sichuan Medical Quality Control Center of Hematology. According to the disease characteristics and medical needs, the Department is divided into five clinical subspecialties, including red cell disease, leukemia, myeloma and lymphoma, haemorrhagic disease, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and immunotherapy. After more than 60 years of discipline construction, the Department has developed into the most powerful hematology specialty and the most important diagnosis and treatment center for complicated and severe hematologic diseases in western China; it is also an important national training base for hematology medical talents in western China, and a technical platform for new technology development, introduction and promotion.
The Department, which currently owns 214 hospital beds, provides medical services to patients from 26 provinces and autonomous regions in China, including Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Chongqing, Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang. Only in 2017, 8191 hospitalized patients were discharged from the Department and 74,577 outpatient visits were registered.
The Department has 39 doctors, including 10 with senior professional titles, 8 with deputy senior professional titles and 21 with medium-grade professional titles. Among them, there are 5 Ph.D. tutors, 10 master tutors, 53.7% with Ph.D. degree, 43.9% with master degree. The Department has assigned its backbone staff to the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and other countries for further study.
Under the support of the special fund for clinical key specialties of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, two supporting platforms, namely, the Hematology Research Laboratory of West China Hospital, Sichuan University and the West China Blood Disease Special Test Center, have been established. Through the talent policy of "Internal Training and External Introduction", a talent team of clinical hematology, experimental hematology and hematopathology has been set up. In the past six years, it has undertaken 12 national projects, 6 provincial and ministerial projects, 2 international cooperation projects, and has published 238 academic papers, of which 61 were included in SCI (related papers published in Nature Medicine, IF 38.13 in 2016).
The Hematology Department is the first center in Western China to carry out autologous,HLA-matched allogeneic,cord blood, and HLA-haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. It has been constantly making explorations innovations in areas like hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, CAR-T treatment, immunotherapy, chemotherapy program optimization, personalized accurate diagnosis and treatment of hematological malignancies. In October 2018, it jointly applied for “Anti-CD19-CART Cell Therapy for B-cell Malignant Tumor” together with Chengdu Galaxy Technology and Beijing Malino Company, which was approved by the State Food and Drug Administration and became the fifth CART product approved for clinical trial in China.
