Chongqing Children's Hospital exceeds 1000 hematopoietic stem cell transplants

Background

The Children's Hospital of Chongqing Medical University has developed a hematopoietic stem cell transplant program since performing Chongqing's first pediatric allogeneic transplant in 2007. This followed the establishment of the hospital's blood specialty in 1956 by Professor Zhang Jin. Under current leadership of Professor Dou Ying, director of the Department of Hematology and Oncology, the program has grown over 19 years.

What was achieved

In September 2026 the hospital announced it had completed more than 1,000 hematopoietic stem cell transplants. The milestone case involved a five-year-old boy with a CIITA gene mutation causing MHC class II deficiency, a rare primary immunodeficiency. By August 2026 the center had performed 352 transplants for primary immunodeficiency diseases with an overall survival rate above 90 percent.

The hospital has completed 142 transplants for Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, reported as the highest number at any single center worldwide. It also carried out the world's first successful transplant for TYK2 gene defect disease in July 2019. The patient achieved full engraftment with neutrophils recovering by day 11 and platelets by day 15, later reported to be attending school. The center has also performed pioneering transplants for conditions including APDS and IPEX in China. It operates 32 transplant cabins, performs over 100 cases annually in recent years, and is described as western China's largest pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplant center. Long-term survival rates exceed 90 percent, reported as reaching international advanced levels. The program covers dozens of conditions including hematological tumors, various primary immunodeficiencies, severe thalassemia, congenital bone marrow failure syndromes and genetic metabolic diseases.

How it works

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation replaces a patient's defective blood-forming stem cells with healthy ones from a donor. For children born with genetic primary immunodeficiency disorders, this rebuilds a functional immune system. The process follows a full-chain approach of pre-transplant precise assessment, intra-transplant management and post-transplant long-term follow-up.

Diagnosis often uses a molecular platform capable of functional verification across more than 500 primary immunodeficiency diseases through genetic, protein and pathway analysis. A compatible donor is identified, frequently an unrelated matched donor through registries such as the China Marrow Donor Program. The patient receives a conditioning regimen, typically chemotherapy, to clear abnormal cells and prevent rejection. Donor stem cells, commonly collected from peripheral blood, are infused intravenously. The cells engraft in the bone marrow and begin producing healthy blood and immune cells. Care occurs in specialized laminar flow transplant units with monitoring for engraftment, infection prevention, graft-versus-host disease management and immune reconstitution. The hospital has developed strengths in conditioning optimization, stratified infection control, graft-versus-host disease management and low-body-weight peripheral blood stem cell collection.

What it means for international patients

The Children's Hospital of Chongqing Medical University is among the first hospitals in Chongqing authorized to provide international medical services. It maintains a dedicated international care area, offers multilingual assistance and operates a 24-hour bilingual Chinese-English consultation hotline. Support includes appointment coordination, multidisciplinary team consultations and direct billing with certain international insurers. The hospital has treated pediatric patients from overseas, including cases from Myanmar.

Families considering hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for rare immunodeficiencies should contact the hospital directly to confirm eligibility, current protocols, donor matching availability and suitability for their child's specific condition. Outcomes depend on individual factors including disease type, donor match and overall health. The hospital's reported high-volume experience with primary immunodeficiency transplants and specific rare genetic conditions may be relevant for patients seeking specialized pediatric care.

About the hospital

Located in Chongqing's Yuzhong District at 1 Yixueyuan Road, the Children's Hospital of Chongqing Medical University is a tertiary pediatric hospital affiliated with Chongqing Medical University. It functions as a National Clinical Research Center for Child Health and Disorders and a National Children's Regional Medical Center. The hospital specializes in pediatric hematology and oncology, rare diseases, critical illnesses and complex conditions including hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

It serves a large patient base with many children traveling from outside Chongqing municipality. The facility includes advanced diagnostic laboratories and emphasizes research, with recent years seeing multiple funded projects, publications and patents related to its transplant program.