Rheumatology and Occupational Diseases Department

| Basic Information |--------------

The Department of Rheumatology and Immunology of Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, was established in 1996 and was formerly the Department of Occupational Diseases. Since its establishment, drawing on the hospital’s overall strengths and its own efforts, and under the leadership and through the diligent work of successive department directors, it has keenly identified trends in changes in the disease spectrum and relevant cutting-edge international research findings. In 2005, it took the lead in establishing the Fudan University Research Center for Rheumatic, Immune and Allergic Diseases, which is based in the Department of Rheumatology and Immunology of Huashan Hospital. With “Cooperation, Contribution, and Development” as its mission, the center works closely with related departments, as well as many renowned hospitals and experts nationwide. It has developed rapidly in the clinical diagnosis and treatment of rheumatic and immune diseases and related conditions, scientific research, talent development, and academic standing, thereby enhancing the department’s academic standing both internationally and domestically. Over the years, it has received nominations in the hospital specialty rankings published by Fudan University and has ranked among the leading institutions in the scientific and technological strength rankings of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Following the official opening of the Baoshan Campus of Huashan Hospital, the medical conditions have improved further. At present, the Department of Rheumatology and Immunology has 37 permanent beds in total at the main hospital and Baoshan Campus. It has been approved as a training base for rheumatology specialists and is also an authorized doctoral program and postdoctoral research station in rheumatology. At the same time, it continues to maintain the occupational disease specialty established in the 1960s. It is now one of eight medical institutions in Shanghai qualified to diagnose occupational diseases, and is also the host institution of the Shanghai Occupational Disease Diagnosis Quality Control Center, responsible for quality control and supervision of occupational disease diagnosis throughout Shanghai. The department currently has 4 senior-ranking staff members, including professors and chief physicians; 7 associate senior-ranking staff members, including associate professors, deputy chief physicians, and associate researchers; 4 attending physicians; and 1 resident physician. Nearly 20 doctoral and master’s students are currently enrolled. All members have postgraduate qualifications, and most hold doctoral degrees.

| Department Features |--------------

The Department of Rheumatology and Immunology mainly uses Western medicine and pharmaceuticals for treatment, follows internationally recommended treatment regimens and methods, and maintains clinical standards in line with international practice. It operates several dedicated clinics, including clinics for systemic sclerosis, gout and hyperuricemia, systemic lupus erythematosus, spondyloarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis. The department’s subspecialty strengths are gout and hyperuricemia and systemic sclerosis. It also conducts extensive public health education, making full use of multimedia platforms, and has established a livestreaming platform and a WeChat public account. It launched the department’s dedicated science-popularization series “Gout Experts Speak” and “Whispers of Harmony,” using diverse formats to strengthen interaction with patients and improve the effectiveness of disease education. The articles, audio and video materials, and books released by the department have accumulated more than one million clicks, reads, and sales, and have received multiple national and provincial or municipal awards. In 2024, it took the lead in establishing the Rheumatic Disease Prevention Professional Committee of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association and has actively promoted primary and secondary prevention and control of rheumatic diseases nationwide.

Gout and Hyperuricemia

The department is committed to the standardized treatment of gout and hyperuricemia and has formulated standards for the diagnosis and treatment of gout. In collaboration with the Laboratory Medicine and Dermatology teams, it independently developed an HLA-B*58:01 test kit and obtained a patent for it. This has greatly improved the safety of allopurinol use and has been incorporated into guidelines in China and abroad as a routine test before allopurinol treatment. The department holds the “Hengjian Gout Forum” every year, featuring focused discussions on advances in gout diagnosis and treatment and cutting-edge research. It operates a dedicated clinic for gout and hyperuricemia at the main hospital on Thursday afternoons and at the Baoshan Campus on Tuesday mornings, as well as a joint gout nutrition clinic at the main hospital on Wednesday afternoons. Under the leadership of Professor Zou Hejian, the department was the first to propose and launch the nationwide “420 National Gout Awareness Day” campaign and conducts public education activities throughout the country every year. It planned and filmed the public education microfilm Regret, produced China’s first 100-episode gout science-popularization short-video series, 100 Questions About Gout, and published the popular science book 100 Questions About Gout. The book was shortlisted in the popular science book category of the 2023 New Era Health Science Popularization Works Collection Competition. “Hengjian Gout” has been recognized as a Shanghai health science-popularization brand.

Systemic Sclerosis

In addition to standardized diagnosis and treatment of common diseases such as gout, the department actively promotes advances in the diagnosis and treatment of the rare disease systemic sclerosis and has formulated standards for its diagnosis and treatment. In 2011, Fudan University and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston jointly initiated the International Network of Scleroderma Clinic and Research, InSCAR, an international collaborative organization for systemic scleroderma research. Its purpose is to unite international forces engaged in basic and clinical research on systemic scleroderma and work together to investigate the disease’s mechanisms, early diagnosis, and effective treatment. Professor Zou Hejian, academic leader of the Department of Rheumatology and Immunology of Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, serves as vice chair. Over the years, the department has accumulated outstanding treatment experience and scientific research achievements while actively conducting clinical research. It operates a dedicated systemic sclerosis clinic at the main hospital on Tuesday afternoons. It was the first institution in Shanghai to conduct nailfold capillaroscopy, a specific examination for systemic sclerosis, thereby providing a simple test for the early diagnosis of systemic sclerosis.

In addition to the diagnosis and treatment of the rheumatic diseases described above, the department continues to provide its original occupational disease diagnostic services. The quality of occupational disease diagnosis is at an advanced level nationally and in Shanghai. The department mainly diagnoses occupational noise-induced hearing loss, occupational hand-arm vibration disease, and chronic occupational poisoning by chemical substances, typified by benzene poisoning. The number of cases diagnosed each year ranks among the highest in Shanghai. Four departmental experts undertake occupational disease diagnosis and appraisal at both the municipal and district levels, as well as work-capacity assessments for patients with occupational diseases in Shanghai and its districts.

| Teaching |--------------

In teaching, the Department of Rheumatology and Immunology is authorized to confer doctoral and master’s degrees and has a postdoctoral research station. It has trained a group of graduate students with excellent academic and personal qualities and outstanding research abilities. The department provides theoretical teaching on rheumatic and toxic diseases through the Department of Internal Medicine of Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, and provides bedside teaching in rheumatology at Huashan Clinical Medical College. Its students include those enrolled in eight-year and five-year clinical medicine programs, basic medicine, forensic medicine, and international students. As one of the internal medicine base sites for standardized residency training in Shanghai and a rheumatology and immunology specialty training base, it undertakes standardized training for residents and specialists year-round. Every year, it hosts the national continuing education courses Clinical Diagnosis, Treatment and Progress in Systemic Sclerosis and Clinical Diagnosis, Treatment and Progress in Gout and Hyperuricemia. Practical Internal Medicine, for which Professor Zou Hejian, the department’s academic leader, is one of the chief editors, is a major clinical medicine monograph that has had the most far-reaching influence, the longest publication history, the greatest number of editions, and a huge print run in China since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. In addition to Practical Internal Medicine, department members actively participate in compiling New Theories and New Advances in Internal Medicine and Practical Neurology, among others, and in translating foreign works such as Autoantibodies and the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy. The department currently has 1 doctoral supervisor and 4 master’s supervisors. It has a strong teaching team and substantial capacity for resident and specialist training.

| Research |--------------

In research, the Department of Rheumatology has gradually accumulated experience and formed a dynamic research team with strong innovative capacity. Most members have studied or received training at leading international medical and research institutions, including Harvard University in the United States, the University of California, the University of Southern California, the National Research Institute for Child Health and Development in Japan, Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, and the University of Glasgow School of Medicine in Scotland. The department’s principal research areas are gout and hyperuricemia and systemic sclerosis, or scleroderma. Professor Zou Hejian, the academic leader, was a principal initiator of the International Network of Scleroderma Clinic and Research, InSCAR. The department has established long-term research collaborations, as sister institutions, with Massachusetts General Hospital of Harvard University in the United States, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and Japan’s National Research Institute for Child Health and Development. In recent years, the department has received multiple research grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Health Commission, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Science and Technology, and the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, among others, and has undertaken major and key research projects of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Science and Technology. Related research papers have been published in leading international rheumatology journals, including Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases and Arthritis & Rheumatology. Professor Zou Hejian, the academic leader, is director of the Fudan University Research Center for Rheumatic, Immune and Allergic Diseases; honorary president of the Rheumatology and Immunology Physicians Branch of the Shanghai Medical Association; leader of the Gout Group of the Rheumatology and Immunology Physicians Branch of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association; leader of the Gout Group of the Rheumatology and Immunology Branch of the Cross-Strait Association for Medical and Health Exchanges; vice chair of InSCAR; former deputy chair of the Rheumatology Branch of the Chinese Medical Association; vice president of the Rheumatology and Immunology Physicians Branch of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association; former chair of the Rheumatology Branch of the Shanghai Medical Association; deputy chair of the Occupational Disease Clinical Professional Committee of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association; deputy chair of the Occupational Health Standards Professional Committee of the Eighth National Health Standards Committee; and former chair of the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Society of the Shanghai Medical Association. The current executive deputy director of the department, presiding over its work, Chief Physician Wan Weiguo, is chair of the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Society of the Shanghai Medical Association, a member of the Rheumatology Branch of the Shanghai Medical Association, deputy chair of the Shanghai Society of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Rheumatology, a member of the Rheumatic Diseases Branch of the Chinese Association of Integrative Medicine, and a member of the National Technical Guidance Committee for Occupational Disease Diagnosis and Appraisal.

As a drug clinical trial institution approved in 2024 under Shanghai’s first batch of pilot institutions for optimizing the review and approval of innovative drug clinical trials, the department conducts translational and clinical application research every year on small-molecule targeted drugs, large-molecule biologics, cell therapy, gene modification, and other areas. This includes investigator-initiated studies and Phase 1–4 registered drug clinical studies. More than 20 projects are currently in progress each year.