Laboratory Medicine

The Department of Laboratory Medicine of China-Japan Friendship Hospital is a large comprehensive clinical laboratory center integrating medical care, teaching, and research. Established in 1984, after more than 30 years of development and expansion, it has become a modern laboratory department with a rational professional structure and a complete range of testing items. It possesses numerous advanced testing instruments from China and abroad and can complete nearly 600 tests. To facilitate patient visits, the emergency laboratory and the intestinal tract/fever screening laboratory of the Department of Laboratory Medicine provide clinical services 24 hours a day. More than 90% of the testing items can be accurately reported on the same day. In April 2008, the Department of Laboratory Medicine successfully passed the international medical laboratory accreditation to ISO 15189, the international standard of the International Organization for Standardization, organized by the national accreditation authority. The Department of Laboratory Medicine is also a network laboratory for infectious-disease surveillance in Chaoyang District and Beijing. Since 2006, it has also been a standardized training base for resident physicians/technicians of the Ministry of Health and Beijing, undertaking the teaching of experimental diagnostics courses for institutions of higher education including Peking University Health Science Center and Beijing University of Chinese Medicine.

The department’s quality policy is: patients first, accuracy and timeliness, and continuous improvement. It has successively received many honors, including Advanced Collective, Advanced Teaching Collective, and Outstanding Party Branch of China-Japan Friendship Hospital. The volunteer consultation window of the Department of Laboratory Medicine has received the Beijing and national Youth Civilization Unit honors on several occasions. In 2020, it was awarded the title of Beijing Clinical Key Specialty.

Department staffing:

The department director is Cao Yongtong, the deputy director is Ma Liang, the person responsible for quality is Han Chengwu, and the technical persons responsible are Li Jiang, Yu Xueying, and Zhang Tie. The Department of Laboratory Medicine has 94 staff members, including 1 chief physician, 3 senior researchers, 2 chief technicians, 2 associate chief physicians, 7 associate chief technicians, 6 attending physicians, 1 resident physician, 3 assistant researchers, 78 technicians, and 1 engineer. The department currently has 17 doctoral degree holders, 12 master’s degree holders, 43 bachelor’s degree holders, and 22 persons with education below the bachelor’s level; 72 persons with a bachelor’s degree or above account for 77% of the total. Senior professional titles account for 16%, intermediate professional titles for 50%, and junior professional titles for 34%. Doctoral degrees account for 18%, master’s degrees or above for 13%, bachelor’s degrees for 45%, and below bachelor’s degrees for 24%.

Cao Yongtong, male, Doctor of Medicine, chief physician, professor, and doctoral supervisor. He is currently director of the Departments of Laboratory Medicine and Blood Transfusion of China-Japan Friendship Hospital. He has successively worked in clinical surgery, clinical laboratory medicine, and clinical transfusion therapy for more than 20 years. He has undertaken projects supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, National Natural Science Foundation of China projects, national “863” special projects, and Beijing Capital characteristic special projects, and has published more than 40 SCI papers. He concurrently serves as a committee member of the Laboratory Medicine Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, a committee member of the Clinical Transfusion Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, a standing committee member of the Laboratory Medicine Professional Committee of the Chinese Association of Integrative Medicine, a standing committee member of the Laboratory Physicians Branch of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association, a standing committee member of the Medical Laboratory Branch of the Beijing Medical Association, and deputy chair of the Laboratory Medicine Professional Committee of the Beijing Association of Integrative Medicine.

Ma Liang, male, Doctor of Medicine, associate researcher, master’s supervisor, and visiting scholar at Baylor College of Medicine, United States. He is currently deputy director of the Department of Laboratory Medicine of China-Japan Friendship Hospital. He mainly engages in clinical testing and research in molecular diagnostics. To date, he has published more than 60 related papers in domestic and international journals, led 6 projects including the General Program and Young Scientists Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and participated in more than 10 projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the National Key Research and Development Program. He concurrently serves as a youth committee member of the Laboratory Medicine Professional Committee of the Chinese Association of Integrative Medicine and deputy chair of its Molecular Diagnostics Special Committee, a committee member of the Gene Testing Branch of the China Medical Equipment Association, a committee member of the Laboratory Medicine Professional Committee of the Beijing Association of Integrative Medicine and leader of its Molecular and Cellular Genetics Professional Group, and a council member of the Laboratory Medicine Branch of the Beijing Medical Doctor Association, among other positions.

Outpatient and ward setup: The Department of Laboratory Medicine has the following professional groups: Basic Testing Group (including the Clinical Examination Room and Hematology Morphology Room), Emergency Group, Biochemistry and Immunology Group, Clinical Molecular and Cellular Genetics Laboratory, Pretreatment Group (including the Service Desk), and the North Area and West Area Professional Groups.

Introduction to diagnostic and treatment equipment: The main equipment includes: XN fully automated blood cell analysis line, fully automated urinalysis line (UF1000i urine sediment analyzer and Kyoto 4280 dry chemistry analyzer), STAGORvolution coagulation analyzer, Beckman FC500 flow cytometer, Beckman fully automated biochemical analyzer AU5800, Roche pretreatment system (cobasp612\\617), Roche E602 chemiluminescent immunoassay analyzer, Abbott i2000 chemiluminescent immunoassay analyzer, Siemens chemiluminescent immunoassay analyzer, fully automated special protein analyzer IMMAGE800, immunoassay analyzer DXI800, multiple conventional and quantitative PCR analyzers, ABI3500 first-generation sequencer, multiple Guolian online blood-cell imaging systems, and chemiluminescent immunoassay analyzers from Mindray, Autobio, Hotgen, and other manufacturers.

Distinctive features of the department’s diagnosis and treatment:

1. Cell morphology examinations: These include bone marrow cell morphology and peripheral blood cell morphology examinations. High-resolution microscopy, chemical staining, flow cytometry, and other testing methods are used, combined with a pathological image analysis system, to provide clinicians with illustrated color reports. The department is also a consultation center in Beijing for difficult cases involving bone marrow and blood-cell morphology.

2. Quantitative PCR and HIV initial screening: The department has one of the first nationally accepted PCR laboratories and HIV initial screening laboratories, mainly performing routine testing for infectious diseases, such as genetic testing for hepatitis B DNA, hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA, Mycoplasma genitalium RNA, and group B Streptococcus; individualized medication testing, such as genetic testing for ADRB1, CYP2D6*10, and apolipoprotein E; genetic testing for hereditary diseases, such as Y-chromosome microdeletions and deafness genes; and testing for neoplastic diseases, such as Septin9 gene methylation testing for colorectal cancer. The molecular biology laboratory is also a network laboratory for emergency testing tasks for various public health emergencies in Beijing.

3. To meet clinical needs, the Department of Laboratory Medicine develops nearly 50 new items each year, such as flow-cytometric testing of lymphocyte subsets and cytokines in blood and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. Chemiluminescence methods are used to test the five hypertension items, malignant tumor-specific growth factors, and Helicobacter pylori antibodies, as well as for rapid testing of Mycoplasma pneumoniae antibodies.

Existing specialty outpatient services: According to work needs, the Department of Laboratory Medicine has the Main Hospital Laboratory, North Area Laboratory, and West Area Laboratory.

Department research achievements: In recent years, the Department of Laboratory Medicine has undertaken 28 projects, including 6 national-level projects and 6 provincial- or ministerial-level projects. It currently has 6 ongoing projects, with nearly 3 million in ongoing funding. These include projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission Clinical Characteristic Application Project, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and hospital-level projects. The Department of Laboratory Medicine has also actively planned and organized many large academic conferences in the domestic and international laboratory medicine community, providing a good platform for academic exchange in the field of laboratory medicine. In recent years, it has published more than 100 academic papers in SCI-indexed and core journals and has served as chief editor or contributing editor for multiple books.

Department teaching:

Since 2006, the Department of Laboratory Medicine has been a standardized training base for resident physicians/technicians of the Ministry of Health and Beijing. It currently undertakes the teaching of experimental diagnostics courses for Peking University Health Science Center and Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, including 5-year, 6-year, 7-year, and 8-year programs. It also undertakes student internships at Sichuan University, Chongqing Medical University, Jiangsu University, Tianjin Medical University, and Beihua University, as well as lectures and tutoring for visiting physicians from all over the country and teaching of in-department professional studies.

In accordance with the relevant regulations on continuing education of the hospital, all staff participate in continuing education and meet the requirements. The department also undertakes Chaoyang District continuing education projects, approximately 5 each year.

Department honors: The volunteer consultation window of the Department of Laboratory Medicine has received the national Youth Civilization Unit honor twice. The Department of Laboratory Medicine has successively received many honors, including Advanced Collective, Advanced Teaching Collective, and Outstanding Party Branch of China-Japan Friendship Hospital. It has also received honors such as Outstanding Teacher of Peking University Health Science Center and Outstanding Teacher of China-Japan Friendship Hospital, totaling more than 15 person-times.

Other important matters: The Department of Laboratory Medicine actively responds to calls from the hospital and actively undertakes public welfare activities. It has successively provided counterpart support to hospitals in Xinjiang, Tibet, Anhui, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, Shunyi District, Shunyi Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Huairou District, and Tongzhou Luhe Hospital, among others. It has established standardized laboratory operating procedures for local hospitals and received unanimous praise from them.

The Department of Laboratory Medicine is currently responsible for the medical consortium work of 16 health service centers in Chaoyang District. Through organizing lectures, establishing WeChat groups, on-site comparisons, and further training, it improves professional standards and ensures the accuracy of community laboratory results, thereby improving the level of the medical consortium and further advancing the national graded diagnosis and treatment program.

Location within the hospital: The central laboratory of the Department of Laboratory Medicine is on the third floor of Building D. According to work needs, it also has outpatient laboratory services (second floor of Building B), emergency laboratory services (first floor of Building B), fever/intestinal tract laboratory services, International Medical Department Laboratory, physical examination laboratory, North Area Laboratory, and West Area Laboratory.

Department telephone numbers:

Second-floor service desk: 84205079

Third-floor service desk: 84205489

West Area Laboratory: 53236412

North Area Laboratory: 84206864