Welcome to the Department of Cardiology. The Department is the home to more than 200 faculty who are supported by a talented team of advanced physicians, scientists, educators, and nurses. Our missions are to provide high-quality care to our patients; to advance cardiovascular research and bring new innovations to patient care; and to train cardiovascular specialists of the future. Xiang Cheng, M.D., Ph.D., is currently the director of Department of Cardiology.

History and National Recognition

Founded in 1960, the Department of Cardiology is one of the earliest master’s and doctor’s degree authorization centers in China and won the “National Key Disciplines” award in 2001 and 2007. In 2008, it was voted as one of the first batches of “Coronary Heart Disease Intervention Training Bases” and “Arrhythmias (catheter ablation and implantable devices) Diagnosis and Treatment Training Bases” by the National Health Commission (formerly the Ministry of Health). In 2009, it was awarded “Key Laboratory of Biological Targeted Therapy of Ministry of Education”. In 2011, it was selected as “National Key Clinical Specialties” by theNational Health Commission. In 2014, it was voted as “Quality Control Centre of Cardiology” in Hubei province. In 2018, it undertook the program of “Improving the of Diagnosis and Treatment of Difficult and Complicated Diseases” sponsored by the National Health Commission. In 2019, it was assigned as a “National Regional Medical Center Pilot Export Unit” by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Health Commission.

Clinical Specialty

The department is leading in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases in the central China. It routinely offers the following healthcare services: 1) emergency and elective PCI, coronary rotational atherectomy, hybrid coronary surgery, IVUS, OCT, FFR, QFR, and IABP and ECOM; 2) radiofrequency ablation; 3) aortic dissection and renal artery stent implantation; 4) interventional treatment of congenital heart disease; 5) percutaneous balloon mitral valvuloplasty (PBMV) and chemical ablation for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy; 6) implantation of permanent cardiac pacemaker, ICD, CRT, CRT-D and transcatheter leadless pacemaker; 7) left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO), one-step operation of left atrial appendage closure combined with radiofrequency ablation for atrial fibrillation; 8) intensive treatment of high-risk cardiovascular diseases; 9) immunoadsorption therapy for dilated cardiomyopathy and adsorption therapy for hyper-cholesterolemia; 10) treatment of complicated cases of myocarditis and cardiomyopathy; and 11) treatment of refractory hypertension. In 2019, there were more than 195,000 outpatient visits and 16,200 discharged patients.

Academic Research

In the past decade, the academic research in the department developed rapidly, especially in fields of cardiovascular immunology, metabolic cardiology, genetics of cardiovascular disease, and cardiovascular ion channel disease. It has undertaken over 150 projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), etc. The department has received more than 10 projects from NSFC per year for 10 consecutive years and was granted more than 20 National/Provincial Scientific and Technological Progress Awards. Journal of Clinical Cardiology, supported by the department, is included by American Chemical Abstracts. The textbook《Cardiology》, edited by the department, is very popular among cardiovascular physicians. The text book《Cardiovascular Immunology》, edited by Professor Yuhua Liao, is the world’s first monograph in cardiovascular immunology. To date, the department has published more than 2000 papers in peer-reviewed journals, such as Nat Genet, Circulation, Eur Heart J, and J Am Coll Cardiol. The world's first therapeutic hypertension vaccine and pulmonary hypertension vaccine with self-owned intellectual property were invented in the department in 2006 and 2019, respectively. The department is the first in China to treat dilated cardiomyopathy with immunoadsorption therapy in 2016. The department leaded the writing of “Chinese Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Heart Failure and Dilated Cardiomyopathy” in 2007 and 2018 respectively. The program “Exploring a Novel Strategy of PCI after Thrombolysis in Primary Hospitals” undertaken by the department won the Gold Prize of “Improving Medical Service Action” sponsored by the National Health Commission in 2017 and the Gold Prize of “Best Clinical Service Project” of the Asian Hospital Management Award (China) in 2018.