Shanghai Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Center for Menstrual Disorders

Shanghai Center for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Menstrual Diseases with Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine

The Shanghai Municipal Specialized Department for Menstrual Diseases Integrating Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine is attached to the Department of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University. The distinguished senior practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine Tang Jifu from this department, together with Li Chaojing and Professor Yu Jin, nationally renowned experts in integrated Traditional Chinese and Western medicine, were among the earliest founders in China of research on integrated Traditional Chinese and Western medicine in obstetrics and gynecology. In China, they were the first to propose the role of the Traditional Chinese Medicine theory that “the kidney governs reproduction” in regulating female reproduction; this theory was widely recognized and applied by their peers, and they made major contributions to the development of integrated Traditional Chinese and Western medicine, also helping our department become one of the hospital’s key specialized departments with distinctive strengths. In 1994, Professor Yu Jin led the establishment of the Shanghai Center for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Menstrual Diseases with Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine and the key discipline of integrated Chinese-Western gynecology, a leading medical specialty in Shanghai. In 2004, the Shanghai Municipal Specialized Department for Menstrual Diseases Integrating Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine was established, with Professor Gui Suiqi serving as director of the specialty.

For many years, the Shanghai Municipal Specialized Department for Menstrual Diseases Integrating Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine has fully leveraged the distinctive strengths of clinical practice in Traditional Chinese medicine, drawn on the strengths of Chinese and Western medicine and made up for their respective shortcomings, organically integrated them into modern clinical medicine and basic research, and continually overcome a series of difficult and complex disorders in obstetrics and gynecology, achieving, especially for menstrual disorders caused by endocrine dysfunction, such as dysfunctional uterine bleeding in adolescence, polycystic ovary syndrome, excessive or scant menstruation, luteal insufficiency, hyperprolactinemia, amenorrhea caused by various factors, menopausal syndrome, recurrent spontaneous abortion, infertility, and acupuncture-assisted ovulation induction, therapeutic outcomes superior to those of Western medicine alone, Traditional Chinese medicine alone, or acupuncture and moxibustion alone; it has also conducted a series of studies on the clinical diagnosis and treatment patterns of integrated Traditional Chinese and Western medicine and on the mechanisms of action of Chinese herbal medicines and acupuncture, demonstrating that Chinese herbal medicines, acupuncture, and moxibustion exert therapeutic effects by regulating the female reproductive neuro－endocrine—immune－metabolic network from the holistic to the molecular level, strengthening the distinctive clinical advantages of Traditional Chinese medicine in its main target diseases, further developing and innovating them, and improving the level of clinical diagnosis and treatment, which is fundamental to enabling our department to provide patients with even higher-quality services. Every year, it attracts numerous patients from within and outside Shanghai and from within China and abroad, conducts international cooperation with Columbia University in the United States and with Italy, receives grants from the U.S. NIH, and has also been included in the appropriate-technology promotion and application project of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Division of the Shanghai Municipal Health Bureau. It has held 16 national-level training courses, disseminating the academic ideas and technical achievements of this specialty. Over the past 10-plus years, it has obtained more than 30 grants, including from the U.S. NIH, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, municipal-level sources, and others; it has won 14 provincial- and ministerial-level science and technology achievement awards, obtained 3 patents, has 2 new drugs under development, and published more than 200 papers, demonstrating that its academic work is at a leading level in the same field in China. At present, it will rely on the key discipline in Phase III of the national “211 Project” and the Shanghai Municipal project for the distinctive development and construction of clinically advantageous Traditional Chinese Medicine specialties as a platform for this specialty’s further innovation and development, continuously expand its international influence, and promote the long-term sustainable development of this discipline.