Rheumatology and Immunology

The Department of Rheumatology and Immunology of the Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was established in 1997. It is the first rheumatology specialty in Xinjiang to provide systematic and standardized integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine treatment for rheumatic and immune diseases, and has long been dedicated to clinical and scientific research in rheumatology and immunology. It has conducted in-depth research, at an advanced domestic level, on the integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine diagnosis and treatment of rheumatic and immune diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, systemic lupus erythematosus, mixed connective tissue disease, Sjögren syndrome, various forms of vasculitis, Behçet disease, gout, scleroderma, fibromyalgia, polymyalgia rheumatica, polymyositis, dermatomyositis, osteoarthritis, postpartum rheumatism, psoriatic arthritis, antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, relapsing polychondritis, IgG4-related disease, and others. Traditional Chinese medicinedistinctive treatments include oral administration of the “Wudu Tongbi” series of Chinese herbal medicines, Chinese herbal fumigation and washing, acupoint application, Chinese herbal medicine package therapy, and traditional Chinese medicine acupuncture and tuina; Western medical treatments mainly include immunosuppressants, biologic agents, and arthrocentesis. The department currently has 12 specialist physicians in rheumatology and immunology, including 1 chief physician, 3 associate chief physicians, 5 attending physicians, and 3 resident physicians. It currently has 60 approved beds, admits more than 3,500 patient visits annually, records more than 30,000 outpatient visits annually, and has a bed occupancy rate exceeding 150%. The department undertakes undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in Internal Medicine of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Internal Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Kazakh medicine, and also undertakes clinical supervision and teaching for standardized trainees, postgraduate students, advanced trainees, and undergraduate students throughout Xinjiang. In terms of research, it has undertaken 2 National Natural Science Foundation of China projects, 2 projects funded by the Natural Science Foundation of the Autonomous Region, 1 project of the Urumqi Municipal Science and Technology Bureau, 4 research innovation fund projects of Xinjiang Medical University, and participated in 1 horizontal project for the development of the Shanghai Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinical Base. It publishes more than 10 academic papers on average each year. The department took the lead in becoming, respectively in 2014 and 2017, the leading institution of the Rheumatology Professional Committee of the Xinjiang Association of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine and the Rheumatology Professional Committee of the Xinjiang Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and became a vice-chair institution of the Society of Traditional Chinese and Ethnic Medicine in 2019.