Pathology

The Department of Pathology was established in 1963. Its successive directors were Yang Bingyan, Li Jing, Wang Jinjin, and Zhang Huijuan. Through the efforts of several generations of pathologists, the discipline has continued to develop, with sophisticated diagnostic capabilities, strong technical expertise, and complete archival records, providing favorable conditions for clinical care, teaching, and scientific research. The department is a specialized pathology training base for breast and female reproductive system diseases in Shanghai and a member institution of the Cervical Cytology Quality Control Program, and it has a postgraduate training program in pathology. Director Yang Bingyan received the Second Prize of the National Science and Technology Achievement Award.

There are currently 24 medical and technical staff members, with those holding doctoral/master’s degrees accounting for 50%. The department is primarily responsible for the diagnosis of various specimens from surgeries, biopsies, cytology examinations, and other procedures performed at the hospital. Each year, it undertakes approximately 50,000 histological diagnoses and 110,000–130,000 cytological diagnoses. Its diagnostic scope covers the pathology of benign and malignant tumors of the gynecologic and breast systems, as well as placental pathology in adverse pregnancy outcomes. The annual average number of perinatal autopsies is 100–200. The department provides consultations on difficult pathological sections from across the country, averaging 1,500 cases annually. In addition to routine immunohistochemistry and dual staining for p16/ki67 in cytology, it also conducts a series of molecular pathology tests, including FISH, TCGA molecular subtyping of endometrial cancer, 90-gene testing for gynecologic tumors, homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) testing for ovarian cancer, BRAC1/2 gene testing, and 21-gene testing for breast cancer. The current academic leader and department director, Zhang Huijuan, holds a PhD in Pathology from The University of Hong Kong and was a visiting scholar in the Department of Pathology and the Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Oxford, UK. She has led and undertaken more than ten national- and provincial/municipal bureau-level scientific research projects. The department focuses on basic and clinical pathology research into the diagnosis and pathogenesis of gynecologic tumors, placental pathology and the pathogenesis of gestational trophoblastic diseases, and the pathogenesis of perinatal malformations.