10,000 transplants is a significant milestone.

On January 27, 1964, Academician Lu Daopei, the "founder of bone marrow transplantation in China," successfully performed Asia's first and the world's fourth allogeneic bone marrow transplantation at Peking University People's Hospital. This opened the era of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for treating hematological diseases in China, bringing new hope to countless hematology patients.

On April 19, 2024, Lu Daopei Medical Group completed its 10,000th HSCT since its establishment. To date, Lu Daopei Medical Group has become the medical institution in the industry to reach the 10,000-HSCT milestone in the shortest time.

For most people, HSCT is just a medical technology, but in the hearts of patients, it represents hope and the future. On social platforms, praises from patients and their families for Lu Daopei Hospital are countless...

· "After a decade of seeking medical treatment, we ignited hope time and time again, only to endure setbacks. Finally, the doctors and nurses at Lu Daopei Hospital pulled our family out of the mire and gave our child a new life."

· "What touched us most is that Lu Daopei Hospital's treatment for hematology patients is not only timely and professional but also full of humanistic care. Its personalized treatment plans and follow-up services are particularly worthy of praise!"

"Saving More Hematology Patients"

Today, Lu Daopei Medical Group has become one of the world's largest HSCT centers. Its founding stemmed from a simple wish of Academician Lu Daopei: "I want to save more hematology patients." In April 2012, Lu Daopei Medical Group signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Yanda Group to jointly establish the Lu Daopei Hematology and Oncology Center, where the story of 10,000 transplants began.

To realize this wish and save more patients, merely copying previous treatment plans was insufficient. In the early 21st century, Academician Lu Daopei led his team to develop the GIAC regimen, pioneering the era of haploidentical HSCT in China.

In 2019, the annual number of HSCTs at Lu Daopei Hospital exceeded 1,000 for the first time, reaching 1,081 (over 70% of which were haploidentical related transplants). This achieved curative effects of haploidentical transplantation comparable to those of fully matched and unrelated transplants. In the same year, Lu Daopei Medical Group was awarded the only International Achievement Award in the 2019 "Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Action Awards" by the Regenerative Medicine Foundation (RMF), becoming the first Chinese organization to receive this honor.

Meanwhile, as a specialized hematology medical institution, Lu Daopei Medical Group has continuously increased investment in basic research and clinical application of hematological diseases and tumors.

From 2018 to 2023, the Lu Daopei medical team, with Professor Lu Peihua (Executive Medical Director of Lu Daopei Hospital) as the academic leader, published 310 academic papers as first author and/or corresponding author, including 226 SCI papers with a cumulative impact factor of 642.369.

At the just-concluded 50th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT), representatives of the Lu Daopei medical team traveled to the UK with 18 research achievements and delivered 1 oral presentation. The content covered the latest advances in HSCT and cellular immunotherapy, as well as research related to clinical laboratory testing. The number and quality of presentations ranked among the top.

Standing as "The Last Stop for Hematology Patients"

The development of Lu Daopei Medical Group can be regarded as a model of integrating medical technology with humanistic care.

In most cases, Lu Daopei Hospital is not the first choice for patients. "Especially when the hospital was just starting, most of our patients had complex and critical conditions. Some were unable to be admitted to public hospitals due to bed shortages and came to our hospital with a try-and-see attitude," said Director Lu Peihua to "Medical Circle." "Most patients are in critical condition at the time of diagnosis and need to be hospitalized immediately for comprehensive and systematic treatment."

From the very beginning, the doctors at Lu Daopei Hospital have dealt with various difficult and critically ill patients in advanced stages. The title of "the last stop for hematology patients" has gradually spread among patients. To facilitate medical treatment, patients have gathered near the hospital, forming a natural community. This community has become the famous "Little White Village" in Yanjiao, where tens of thousands of hematology patients and their families from all over the country live all year round.

Niuniu (pseudonym), a young patient diagnosed with "infant leukemia" at just 2 months old, is the youngest patient ever admitted to Lu Daopei Hospital. Although Niuniu did not meet the transplant criteria at the time of admission, the medical team at Lu Daopei Hospital still formulated a detailed personalized treatment plan for him after careful evaluation. Eventually, Niuniu met the transplant standards at 6 months old and underwent umbilical cord blood HSCT (double umbilical cord blood), successfully being discharged from the hospital.

Lu Daopei Hospital has admitted many special patients like Niuniu. Adhering to the original aspiration of "saving more hematology patients," the successful transplant cases of Lu Daopei Medical Group so far include high-difficulty transplant recipients such as young and elderly patients. In addition, there are complex cases such as patients with aplastic anemia complicated with hemophilia, patients with congenital single kidney, and liver transplant recipients. Even patients with rare diseases (such as high-risk and refractory Langerhans cell histiocytosis, mucopolysaccharidosis, etc.) have received treatment at Lu Daopei Hospital...

Although patients coming to Lu Daopei Hospital have different life experiences, they all receive equal treatment with warmth and efficiency from the hospital:

· As early as 2012, Lu Daopei Hospital began providing pick-up and accommodation services for patients to facilitate their medical visits. In mid-March 2021, to comprehensively improve service quality, the hospital also established a volunteer service fleet, responsible for providing free transfers from stations and airports for newly diagnosed patients and their families, accompanying them to complete various admission procedures, and sending them to the ward area.

· To help patients find suitable hematopoietic stem cells as soon as possible, the Social Services Department of Lu Daopei Hospital also specially provides unrelated donor search services for patients.

· Lu Daopei Hospital has always implemented a "five-year one-stop" follow-up process—maintaining interaction with patients until they are completely "cured of leukemia."

· At Lu Daopei Medical Group, the contact information of all medical team members is public, so patients can obtain professional medical support whenever needed.

The warmth of caring for every patient has earned Lu Daopei Hospital the trust and reputation of patients: "It was only when I came here that I learned that patients can directly add doctors' WeChat accounts and get timely answers to any questions at any time. I also found that the head nurse answers various questions from patients in nearly dozens of groups every day without ever getting tired... I am grateful that I chose here." This is the true feeling of a patient.

10,000 Transplants: Not the End

To date, the hospitals under Lu Daopei Medical Group have 860 beds and 137 Class 100 laminar flow wards. The upcoming new Shanghai campus will have a total of 276 beds, including 24 Class 100 laminar flow wards and 7 clean intensive care beds. It is expected that after the relocation of Hebei Yanda Lu Daopei Hospital to a new site in 2025, it will have 800 beds and at least 70 transplant wards per hospital... It is evident that 10,000 HSCTs are far from the end for Lu Daopei Medical Group.

Academician Lu Daopei once said: "In my lifetime, I must conquer hematological diseases."

Director Lu Peihua also stated: "We are not just building a hospital for treating diseases. We must have excellent technology and be at the forefront of academia. At the same time, we will take our advantages abroad to cultivate outstanding next-generation hematologists for the country."

The milestone of 10,000 HSCTs is not only a remarkable achievement of Lu Daopei Medical Group in the field of hematological disease treatment but also the best interpretation of Academician Lu Daopei's original aspiration of "benefiting patients." The initial intention of serving patients, the determination to conquer diseases, and the ambition to build a world-class hematological disease treatment platform have influenced generations of "Daopei people," driving them to constantly explore and progress, and will continue to benefit hematology patients across China.