Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine

1. Brief introduction

The Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine was established in 1958. Through unremitting efforts of all members, it has developed into a large department integrating clinic, teaching and scientific research. It is recognized as a national key clinical specialty, a national clinical pharmacology base, a key discipline of Shaanxi Province, and Xi’an Jiaotong University Medical Union---Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine Center. It was selected into the “National Difficult Disease Diagnosis and Treatment Capacity Improvement Project Reserve Bank” in 2018. We have 105 beds at present, including 10 in the respiratory intensive care unit (RICU), bronchoscopy room, allergic reaction laboratory, lung function testing and blood gas analysis laboratory, and sleep respiratory disorder monitoring center, etc. Our department has 97 practitioners in total, 10 of which are chief physicians, 8 with deputy-senior title, and more than 20 with medium-grade professional titles. As an awarding point for doctoral and master degree, 3 of our members are doctoral supervisors and 6 are master supervisors.

2. Medical characteristics:

Our department has subspecialized groups for pulmonary malignancy, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, interstitial lung disease, critical care disease, smoking cessation, pulmonary infection, pulmonary vascular disease and interventional therapy, equipped with electrocardiogram monitoring system, mechanical ventilators, ImmunoCAP detection system, Niels exhaled nitric oxide measurement system, multiple sets of the Olympus electronic bronchoscope, ultrasound bronchoscope, medical thoracoscopy, lung function testing instrument and arterial blood gas analyzer. Through these advanced medical equipment, we have made many achievements in the diagnosis and treatment of the following diseases:

  1) Specific diagnosis and immunotherapy for allergens of asthma

We have successfully isolated and purified main allergen vaccine targeted at allergic diseases in Shaanxi Province, which can be applied to the specific diagnosis and immunotherapy of asthma and other allergic diseases, enabling patients to get rid of trouble of glucocorticoids as soon as possible.

  2) Early diagnosis and individualized treatment of lung cancer

We applied techniques of ultrasound bronchoscopy, fluorescent bronchoscopy, virtual navigation system combined EBUS-GS, medical thoracoscopy, transthoracic lung biopsy guided by B-scan ultrasonography and CT to diagnose 90% patients with lung cancer. For patients with advanced lung cancer, we tested the driver-gene of tumor and the sensitivity of chemotherapeutic drugs via second-generation sequencing, and subsequently adopted treatment programs such as targeted therapy, immunotherapy, chemotherapy combined with anti-tumor angiogenesis therapy, which significantly prolonged survival time of patients.

  3) Early diagnosis, prevention and treatment of COPD

Besides bronchodilators and glucocorticoids, we applied oxygen therapy, mechanical sputum discharge, sputum aspiration under bedside bronchoscopy, non-invasive and invasive mechanical ventilation for the treatment of patients with COPD techniques, treating many critically ill patients successfully. We also carried out and promoted the lung rehabilitation project, which can reduce the acute exacerbations, and improve exercise endurance and life quality of COPD patients.

  4) Interventional therapy for respiratory diseases

We applied argon plasma coagulation, frozen, airway stents, balloon dilatation and removal of foreign bodies mediated by bronchoscopy for patients with bronchial stenosis to relieve their symptoms. In addition, we cooperate with the Department of Radiology to perform trans-vascular interventional therapy, ensuring patients with pulmonary embolism, massive hemoptysis and lung cancer timely and effective treatment.

  5) Diagnosis and treatment of respiratory infectious diseases

We studied the resistance mechanism of Acinetobacter baumannii that produced extended-spectrum β-lactamase, and compared the detection methods of AmpC enzyme produced by Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. We identified the first SARS patient in Northwest China, and diagnosed patient with mixed infection caused by multi-resistant bacteria.

  6) Diagnosis and treatment of sleep respiratory disorders

We are now actively conducting sleep-breathing monitoring and pressure titration for patients with sleep respiratory disorders to find its cause, and provide corresponding treatments, which relieves their symptoms such as daytime sleepiness, fatigue or memory loss, and decrease the incidence of complication.

3. Scientific research achievements

Our main research orientations are as follows: 1) Prevention and treatment of asthma. 2) Early diagnosis of lung cancer. 3) Early diagnosis and rehabilitation therapy of COPD. 4) Molecular mechanism and treatment of pulmonary hypertension. 5) Diganosis and treatment of respiratory infectious diseases. 6) Diagnosis and treatment of Sleep Apnea Hypopnea Syndrome (SAHS). Up to now we have managed or participated in more than 40 national and provincial scientific research projects, including projects from National Natural Science Foundation, the Clinical Key Project of the Ministry of Health, the Program for New Century Excellent Talents of Ministry of Education and the Key Projects of Shaanxi Province, etc. We have won Shaanxi Science and Technology Progress Award 6 times, and published more than 300 papers in domestic and foreign academic journals, including 78 SCI papers. As the chief editor or associate editor, we took part in the compilation of 12 textbooks and monographs. We also joined in and completed more than 30 national clinical trials.