Ophthalmology

The Department of Ophthalmology of Dongguan People's Hospital was formally established in 1987. After years of development, the overall strength of the discipline is nationally advanced and leading in Dongguan. It is a first-level clinical department of Dongguan People's Hospital, a Guangdong provincial key clinical medical specialty and a Dongguan municipal key clinical medical specialty, and a Dongguan key laboratory for major diseases. It is also the host unit of the Dongguan Ophthalmic Medical Quality Control Center, the chairperson unit of the Ophthalmology Branch of the Dongguan Medical Association, the leading unit of the Dongguan Myopia Prevention and Control Specialty Alliance, a development unit of the Brightness Center of the Beijing Bethune Public Welfare Foundation, a development unit of the Clinical Center for Precision Prevention and Treatment of Myopia of the China Ethnic Health Association, and a national standardised residency training base.

The discipline has three ophthalmic outpatient clinics and one inpatient ward, with 44 open beds, and is committed to building for patients a one-stop ophthalmic medical service system integrating outpatient care, hospitalisation, examination, surgery and optometry. The discipline has a strong talent pool. It currently has 28 physicians, including 6 with a full senior professional title, 12 with an associate senior professional title, 10 with an intermediate professional title, 3 with doctoral-level education and 14 with master's-level education. There are 4 specialty technicians, of whom 2 hold intermediate titles. The discipline has strong technical capability, powerful capacity for the diagnosis and treatment of difficult and critical eye diseases, and strong comprehensive capability in preventing and treating blindness. According to the department, the proportion of critical, emergency and difficult cases among the diagnostic and treatment services it provides exceeds 80%, the proportion of grade III and IV surgeries exceeds 80%, and the cure rate is close to 100%. The department actively promotes multidisciplinary and cross-regional cooperation; its services radiate to all 32 towns and districts of the city, and it has long undertaken consultation on difficult ophthalmic cases for the whole city, specialty examinations, referral of acute and severe eye diseases, and the training of ophthalmologists at primary hospitals.

The department has advanced and complete specialty diagnostic and treatment equipment, including the Alcon vitrectomy system, a phacoemulsification system, the IntraLase iFS femtosecond laser system, the VISX S4 (IR) excimer laser system, the PASCAL ophthalmic multi-spot scanning laser, the Pentacam three-dimensional anterior segment analyzer, a Zeiss surgical microscope, IOL Master, a Humphrey visual field analyzer, and the latest swept-source OCT, among a batch of high-end ophthalmic equipment. It has clear advantages in minimally invasive surgery, highly difficult and sophisticated surgery, and precision medicine.

The department is committed to providing citizens with high-quality nursing care, and in recent years has successively received honorary titles such as “Hospital Advanced Nursing Quality Management Collective” and “Quality Nursing Service Department”. Within the nursing team, 1 holds a master's-level education and 17 hold a bachelor's-level education, with the bachelor's and master's proportion reaching 82%. The discipline vigorously trains nursing personnel and regularly selects nurses for study and advanced training at higher-level hospitals. The nursing team is able to skilfully assist in carrying out various complex examinations and surgeries. The discipline strongly advocates innovation in nursing technology, and the related achievements have won a number of national utility model patents.

The discipline attaches importance to scientific research and has achieved gratifying results. In the past five years it has obtained 6 research grants, including 1 from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, 1 from the provincial Natural Science Foundation, 2 from the Guangdong–Dongguan joint fund, 1 from the provincial medical research fund and 1 municipal key science and technology project. It has published 8 high-quality papers in core journals in China and abroad, of which 8 are SCI papers. It has participated in the compilation of 5 monographs.

Subspecialties and featured diagnostic and therapeutic techniques

The department has six subspecialties covering the anterior segment, the posterior segment, optometry, and orbital and lacrimal diseases: the cataract and glaucoma subspecialty, the vitreoretinal surgery and ocular trauma subspecialty, the fundus medicine and TCM ophthalmology subspecialty, the optometry and strabismus and amblyopia subspecialty, the ocular surface and orbital disease subspecialty, and the ophthalmic imaging and laser subspecialty. It also operates specialty clinics, disease-specific clinics and special-need clinics. The main featured specialty diagnostic and therapeutic techniques are described below.

1. Cataract and glaucoma subspecialty

The cataract subspecialty has achieved precise calculation of intraocular lens power and individualised formulation of diagnostic and treatment plans, and has always stood at the technical forefront of cataract surgery. Both the conventional cataract surgeries and the various complex cataract surgeries it performs have reached the advanced level in China, for example congenital cataract, traumatic cataract, cataract after vitrectomy and lens dislocation, enabling patients to obtain satisfactory visual outcomes.

In recent years it has held a leading position in the province in the precise planning of premium intraocular lenses and in intraocular refractive correction technology. It performs micro-incision phacoemulsification, multifocal intraocular lenses, toric intraocular lenses, aspheric intraocular lenses and implantation of new-type intraocular lenses for eyes with extremely high myopia, among other procedures, meeting individualised refractive needs.

The glaucoma subspecialty comprehensively carries out all types of glaucoma treatment, including medication, laser, cryotherapy and various types of surgery (combined trabeculectomy, minimally invasive glaucoma drainage device, glaucoma valve implantation, phacoemulsification with intraocular lens implantation combined with filtering surgery, goniosynechialysis, anterior vitrectomy for malignant glaucoma, etc.), and continuously develops new treatment methods by keeping up with the medical frontier, effectively improving the treatment results for refractory glaucoma.

It carries out and promotes the provincial appropriate health technology “Early diagnosis and standardised follow-up of glaucoma”, permeating every link of glaucoma diagnosis and treatment with modern physical examination methods, such as static threshold visual field testing, visual electrophysiological examination, optic disc image analysis and retinal nerve fibre layer thickness measurement, and visual contrast sensitivity testing, thereby advancing the early standardised diagnosis, prevention and treatment of glaucoma in the Dongguan area.

2. Optometry and strabismus and amblyopia subspecialty

The optometry subspecialty has been performing myopia correction surgery for 20 years, and maturely performs femtosecond laser-assisted personalised corneal refractive surgery and ICL intraocular lens implantation, providing myopic patients with diversified and comprehensive correction options. In 2019 it took the lead in establishing the Dongguan Myopia Prevention and Control Specialty Alliance, vigorously promoted the provincial appropriate health technology “Screening for paediatric eye diseases and correction of refractive errors in adolescents”, comprehensively advanced myopia prevention and control, and carries out fitting of various specially designed refractive lenses and orthokeratology lenses, providing personalised myopia correction plans and follow-up management for different age groups and safeguarding the healthy visual development of adolescents in Dongguan with professional and systematic diagnostic and treatment services.

The strabismus and amblyopia subspecialty carries out treatment for all types of strabismus in children and adults and individualised amblyopia training, performs accommodative function testing at all ages, provides accommodative training for sub-health states such as rapidly progressing myopia and visual fatigue, and also provides refractive design services for people with presbyopia.

3. Vitreoretinal surgery and ocular trauma subspecialty

The vitreoretinal surgery and ocular trauma subspecialty receives large numbers of patients referred from primary hospitals with complex diabetic retinopathy, retinal detachment and severe ocular trauma, and performs surgical treatment for various complex vitreoretinal diseases, such as complex ocular trauma, large intraocular foreign bodies, infectious endophthalmitis, vitreous haemorrhage, maculopathy in high myopia, proliferative diabetic retinopathy, tractional retinal detachment, macular hole and macular epiretinal membrane. The surgical success rate is high and the results are good.

In 2023, for patients at high risk of eyeball atrophy, such as those with severe ocular trauma and silicone-oil-dependent eyes, it launched the new technique of “foldable artificial vitreous balloon implantation”, using all-round treatment to save visual function and bringing the hope of preserving sight to eyes that are about to atrophy.

4. Fundus medicine and TCM ophthalmology subspecialty

The fundus medicine and TCM ophthalmology subspecialty admits large numbers of patients with acute and chronic fundus diseases such as diabetic retinopathy, uveitis, age-related macular degeneration, retinal vascular occlusion, optic neuritis and ischaemic optic neuropathy.

It performs anti-VEGF therapy for intraocular neovascular diseases, macular oedema and other chronic intractable eye diseases.

Working together with the neonatology department, it carries out standardised screening for retinopathy of prematurity, and it participates in multidisciplinary MDT consultations with the neurology and neurosurgery departments, comprehensively improving the diagnostic and treatment results for neuro-ophthalmic diseases.

It also carries out TCM-featured diagnostic and therapeutic techniques such as acupuncture for paralytic strabismus and ischaemic optic neuropathy, direct current drug iontophoresis for vitreous opacity, and auricular acupoint pellet pressing for pseudomyopia and low myopia in children and adolescents. It uses combined Chinese and Western medicine techniques to treat dry eye, fundus vascular diseases and uveitis, and has achieved good efficacy.

5. Ocular surface and orbital disease subspecialty

The ocular surface and orbital disease subspecialty has rich clinical experience in the diagnosis and treatment of dry eye, corneal diseases, lacrimal duct obstruction, eyelid plastic surgery and orbital tumours. It provides standardised diagnosis and treatment for various refractory ocular surface diseases, ocular tumours and orbital inflammatory diseases, and formulates all-round individualised diagnostic and treatment plans and follow-up schedules for patients.

The subspecialty maturely performs comprehensive analysis and treatment of dry eye, individualised treatment of meibomian gland dysfunction, paediatric lacrimal irrigation and probing, repair of lacrimal trauma, nasolacrimal duct recanalisation, various ocular surface and eyelid reconstruction surgeries (limbal stem cell transplantation, ptosis correction, double-eyelid blepharoplasty, eye bag resection, etc.), and resection of various types of ocular tumours. It also participates in the multidisciplinary consultation (MDT) for orbital blood-related diseases and thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy, comprehensively improving the overall diagnostic and treatment results for the relevant diseases.

6. Ophthalmic imaging and laser subspecialty

The ophthalmic imaging and laser subspecialty is equipped with ultra-widefield laser scanning ophthalmoscopy (SLO), optical coherence tomography (OCT), optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA), fundus fluorescein angiography (FFA), indocyanine green angiography (ICGA), a Humphrey automated visual field analyzer, a corneal endothelial cell counter, IOL-Master optical biometry, corneal topography, a wavefront aberrometer, a paediatric wide-field retinal imaging system, ocular A/B ultrasound, ultrasound biomicroscopy (UBM), a dry eye comprehensive analyzer, a digital slit lamp, a phoropter, a synoptophore, and accommodation testing and training, among other advanced instruments and equipment. It can complete all ophthalmic examinations efficiently and sensitively, improve the detection rate of disease, and provide an all-round basis for disease diagnosis and treatment.

The department has a batch of advanced equipment including the Zeiss fundus 532 argon laser, the 577 multi-spot scanning laser and the Nd-YAG laser, and routinely performs peripheral iridectomy to prevent and treat early glaucoma, posterior capsulotomy for after-cataract, and retinal laser photocoagulation for fundus diseases such as peripheral retinal degeneration, retinal breaks, diabetic retinopathy and retinal vein occlusion.