Mystery ailments? A medical center undertakes the sleuthing
Print Edition
THE Minhang Collaboration Network, a cooperative project with Fudan University Children’s Hospital, is operating China’s first center for undiagnosed diseases. The aim is to focus on diseases that have been traditionally difficult to diagnose and treat.
Fudan University Children’s Hospital has cooperative relationships with hospitals throughout the world. Through these alliances, Fudan was able to create the new center. It follows US medical standards to treat illnesses that are rare and have no obvious origins.
The center employs a process called “remote diagnosis,” allowing Chinese and American pediatric specialists to treat patients without having to leave Shanghai.
According to hospital director Huang Guoying, the center has already seen almost 3,000 patients, including about 2,000 children displaying symptoms of 200 different genetic disorders.
The center takes on cases that other hospitals have failed to diagnose. For instance, in late December, a 12-year-old girl from Ningbo, in Shanghai’s neighboring Zhejiang Province, was admitted to a local hospital, suffering from a cough and fever. She was coughing up blood. A CT scan showed a clot in her lungs.
As she developed respiratory failure, she was transferred to the Fudan center. There, she was diagnosed with the uncommon vascular disorder known as microscopic polyangitis. After three weeks in intensive care, she was released in improved health.
Under a special projects fund at the hospital, some patients can receive a molecular diagnosis for free.
That comes amid medical community calls for an overhaul of the medical insurance system to alleviate the cost burden on patients.
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