Pathology

I. Basic Introduction

The Department of Pathology of the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University was founded in 1952 and is one of the earliest pathology departments established in Shandong Province. Professor Jin Zezhong, the department's first director, served as Chairperson of the Shandong Society of Pathology, studied at Johns Hopkins University in the United States in 1946, was a renowned pathologist in China, and participated in compiling the undergraduate medical-school planning textbook 《Pathology》.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the department was already the core pathology consultation center and pathology physician advanced training base in the Jiaodong region; in 1978, with the approval of the State Council, it became one of the first group of disciplines nationwide authorized to confer master's degrees. From 2012 to 2014, it was successively recognized as a Shandong Provincial Key Clinical Specialty, a Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Tumor Pathology, and a National Standardized Training Base for Pathology Residents. The department assumes full responsibility for the core work of clinical pathology diagnosis at the hospital, pathology teaching at the Medical College of Qingdao University, and medical research.

Through the successive generations of pioneers in pathology—Zhou Huimin, Zhao Yutian, Yang Meihuai, Yang Mingli, Yu Lijia, Zheng Guojun, Zhang Hongye, Jiang Jianche, He Zhiqian, Zhao Chunli, Zheng Yingjie, Guo Cheng, Zhu Zongling, Ji Xiangrui, and Jiang Tianfu—and through Professor Li Yujun's passing on of the torch, dedicated and diligent work, and selfless devotion, the department has achieved leapfrog development in every dimension, including discipline development, clinical care, subspecialty planning, academic standards, talent cultivation, and equipment allocation, and has yielded abundant results and remarkable achievements in medical services, talent education, and scientific research.

For a long time, the department has actively responded to national calls, followed the hospital's unified deployment, and fulfilled the mission of physicians and the responsibility to the country and its people. Physicians Li Yujun, Wei Zhimin, Liu Hui, and Li Xia traveled to the Hospital of the Fourth Agricultural Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps to carry out aid work in Xinjiang, bringing high-quality pathology diagnosis and treatment technologies and advanced diagnostic and treatment concepts to the front line of the border region and helping improve and upgrade the local medical and health service capacity; experts Ji Xiangrui and Zhao Peng traveled to Tanzania and Seychelles, respectively, to carry out national foreign-aid medical missions. They have always upheld the spirit of China's medical aid teams abroad—fearlessness of hardship, willingness to dedicate themselves, saving lives and healing the injured, and boundless love—worked diligently on the front lines of overseas healthcare, and built a bridge of friendship for international health and wellness cooperation.

II. Talent Structure

The department has built a talent team with a rational structure and well-developed levels, with young and middle-aged backbone physicians already serving as the mainstay of the department's medical diagnosis, teaching and education, and scientific research and innovation. The department currently has 121 on-duty employees, including 57 physicians, 38 technicians, and 26 auxiliary staff; 11 chief physicians/professors, 20 deputy chief physicians/associate professors, and 4 deputy chief technicians; 1 doctoral supervisor, 11 master's supervisors, and 27 personnel with doctoral degrees; 1 Shandong Province Young Taishan Scholar; and 3 people who have successively served as committee members of the Pathology Branch of the Chinese Medical Association.

The department routinely selects professional and technical backbones to pursue further study and advanced training at China's leading medical institutions, including Nanjing Military Region General Hospital, the Institute of Breast Pathology of Tianjin Cancer Hospital, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, the Institute of Hematology and Blood Diseases Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Nanjing Institute of Dermatology, Tianjin First Central Hospital, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, the Ninth People's Hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital, Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, and the Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University, where they systematically study precision diagnostic techniques in such subspecialties as breast, kidney, liver needle biopsy, lymphoma, bone marrow pathology, dermatopathology, thyroid cytology, oral pathology, female reproductive pathology, central nervous system pathology, liver transplantation pathology, and bone and soft tissue pathology. At the same time, outstanding backbones are selected to visit and exchange at leading international medical institutions and universities, including MD Anderson Cancer Center in the United States, Mayo Clinic, the University of California, Los Angeles, New York University, and Heidelberg University, to refine their skills.

At present, 11 person-times from the department have served as members of the professional study groups of the Pathology Branch of the Chinese Medical Association for digestive pathology, molecular pathology, autopsy, urology and male reproductive pathology, female reproductive pathology, cytopathology, lymphohematopoietic pathology, central nervous system pathology, breast pathology, cardiovascular and transplantation pathology, and head and neck pathology; 2 people serve respectively as leader of the Digestive Study Group and deputy leader of the Autopsy Study Group; many people have been appointed as members and young members of the Pathology Group of the Chinese Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Pathology Group of the Chinese Stomatological Association, and the Cytology Group and Lymphoma Group of the Tumor Pathology Branch of the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association; in addition, multiple backbone members hold important provincial and municipal professional academic positions, including deputy chairpersons of the Pathology Branch of the Shandong Medical Association, chairperson of the Qingdao Pathology Quality Control Center, and chairpersons and deputy chairpersons of the Pathology Branch of the Qingdao Medical Association.

III. Medical Equipment and Core Technologies

The department's technical platform is fully configured, and its hardware facilities are advanced in China. It is comprehensively equipped with fully automated paraffin microtomes, tissue embedding machines, cryostats, fully automated tissue dehydrators, fully automated staining and coverslipping workstations, an automated slide and embedding-cassette numbering system, high-end biological microscopes, multi-head microscopes for shared viewing by multiple people, fluorescence microscopes, and digital pathology slide scanners; it is also equipped with a complete set of professional equipment, including fully automated immunohistochemistry staining machines, special staining machines, fully automated HE staining workstations, and a digital-intelligent pathology reporting system. The department routinely performs core basic and routine pathology techniques, including histopathological examination, cytopathological testing, special staining, immunofluorescence, and immunohistochemistry.

The department has established a molecular pathology subspecialty platform equipped with domestically first-rate high-end and cutting-edge testing equipment, including fluorescence quantitative PCR instruments, first-generation/second-generation sequencers, droplet digital PCR instruments, a high-throughput second-generation sequencing platform, flow cytometers, and peripheral-blood circulating tumor cell CTC detectors. It routinely performs advanced molecular pathology testing techniques, including in situ hybridization, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH/DSISH), gene rearrangement analysis, gene mutation testing, circulating tumor cell testing, and flow cytometric analysis of lymphoma and leukemia.

IV. Medical Services and Subspecialty Features

(1) Comprehensive Regional Layout and All-Round Coordinated Development

As one of the first batch of clinical key specialties in Shandong Province, the department has continuously optimized its comprehensive regional diagnostic and treatment layout. On the basis of the Shinan Campus, it successively established pathology centers at the Laoshan Campus, West Coast Campus, and Pingdu Campus in 2007, 2011, and 2020, respectively, and independently established the Department of Molecular Pathology Diagnosis in 2016. Each campus has separate independent functional units, including a routine pathology technology room, cytopathology room, immunopathology room, and molecular pathology room, and comprehensively carries out full-chain diagnostic and treatment services, including routine histopathological diagnosis, cytopathology screening, pathological autopsy, rapid intraoperative frozen-section diagnosis, immunohistochemical staining, special staining, and fluorescence in situ hybridization.

The department continues to iteratively update cutting-edge pathology technologies, new diagnostic and treatment products, and intelligent medical equipment, steadily pursuing high-quality development in the direction of automation, informatization, intelligentization, and standardization. It has now fully established an all-inclusive subspecialty diagnostic system covering digestive, thoracic, breast, urologic and male reproductive, female reproductive, lymphohematopoietic, central nervous system, bone and soft tissue, dermatologic, head and neck, oral, cytopathology, cardiovascular, organ transplantation, forensic pathology, renal biopsy pathology, and bone marrow biopsy pathology.

In 2025, all department campuses completed a cumulative total for the year of 248508 routine pathology diagnoses, 873473 HE pathology slides, intraoperative rapid frozen-section diagnoses, 29119 cases, 6436 difficult pathology consultations from outside the hospital, and 108595 cytopathology screenings. It has now developed into a comprehensive clinical pathology diagnosis center that is among the largest in Shandong Province and integrates medical diagnosis, talent education, and scientific research and innovation.

(2) Precision Diagnosis and Treatment with a Focus on Key and Distinctive Areas

The Department of Molecular Pathology Diagnosis of our hospital is the first independent specialty department in Shandong Province whose core business is gene-based precision testing. It has strong technical capabilities, high-quality equipment, and a comprehensive and complete range of testing programs. The department routinely performs various cutting-edge technologies, including fluorescence in situ hybridization, first-generation sequencing, high-throughput second-generation sequencing, gene rearrangement testing, digital PCR, and liquid biopsy, and can complete various precision diagnosis and treatment programs, including precision molecular subtyping of endometrial cancer, pan-cancer multigene testing, tumor mutation burden TMB testing, HRR32 gene testing, and comprehensive 196-gene tumor testing.

For 10 consecutive years, the department has successfully passed, with excellent results, the multilevel external quality assessments of PQCC, EMQN, and the National Center for Clinical Laboratories; in 2019, on the strength of its outstanding testing quality and technical capabilities, it was successfully selected as a national PQCC demonstration laboratory and was awarded a plaque at the National Pathology Annual Conference, marking the achievement of national authoritative recognition for the department's molecular pathology testing capabilities and its official entry into the first echelon of domestic molecular pathology testing. Over the past three years, the department's testing workload has steadily increased, reaching an average annual testing volume of 23033 cases, including 18626 cases in 2023, 16862 cases in 2024, and 33610 cases in 2025; its business scale and diagnostic and treatment capabilities have continued to improve steadily.

V. Research and Teaching

(1) Research Innovation and In-Depth Clinical Research

The department conducts in-depth basic and translational research in clinical pathology and has developed multiple professional research directions with distinctive characteristics and outstanding strengths. In 2015, it was approved as the Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Tumor Pathology. In recent years, the department's team has undertaken more than 30 national-, provincial-, and municipal-level research projects, including projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province, and has received 10 provincial- and municipal-level science and technology research awards; it has published more than 150 academic papers in core medical journals in China and abroad, including more than 70 papers indexed by SCI; it has served as chief editor or co-editor of 6 medical monographs and planning textbooks, and has successfully carried out more than 10 new clinical technologies and projects.

(2) Teaching and Talent Development

The department is a dual-authorized training site for academic and professional master's degrees in pathology at Qingdao University and has cumulatively enrolled and trained more than 100 pathology master's graduate students. It has for many years hosted more than 20 national- and provincial-level continuing medical education programs and taken the lead in organizing more than 20 national-, provincial-, and municipal-level academic conferences in pathology. It fully undertakes front-line pathology teaching for undergraduate and graduate students at the Medical College of Qingdao University. Multiple teachers have successively been awarded such honors as Outstanding Graduate Student Supervisor of Qingdao University, Outstanding Teacher of Qingdao University, and Model of Teacher Ethics of Qingdao University, continuously training and supplying large numbers of highly qualified pathology professionals to medical institutions inside and outside the province.