The Division of Pediatric Nephrology, founded in 1987 and officially established in 2018, is one of the largest pediatric nephrology services in China, caring for children from all over the country. The division has a total of 47 faculty and staff members, including three professors, four associate professors, one doctoral supervisor and two master supervisors. It consists of an inpatient ward with 54 open beds, a blood purification center with 17 dialysis beds and a urodynamic examination room.
The division provides medical care for over 45,000 outpatients and 2,300 inpatients annually. As a major referral center for difficult and critical pediatric kidney diseases in China, it has extensive experience in personalized caring for infants, children, and adolescents with congenital and acquired kidney disease. Additionally, it provides care of children with end stage kidney diseases who require chronic dialysis and prenatal consultation services for fetal kidney diseases.
In 2001, the division was the first to carry out real-time ultrasound-guided renal biopsy for children in Sichuan Province, and conducted about 300~400 renal biopsies for children every year. The division is recognized as one of the best children's blood purification centers in China. It started peritoneal dialysis in 1980s, and established the first children's blood purification unit in Sichuan Province in 2005.The intelligent pediatric blood purification center is equipped with eight dialysis machines, four CRRT machines, and two automatic peritoneal dialysis machines. An information platform has been set up for hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, CRRT, renal pathology and chronic kidney disease. It carries out ultrasound-guided central venous catheterization and internal fistula puncture, long-term deep venous indwelling catheter, sodium citrate anticoagulation, laparoscopic peritoneal dialysis catheterization and autologous arteriovenous fistula plasty. It is one of the few dialysis units in China for children who need chronic dialysis therapy, with expertise in both hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. The division also provide other forms of blood purification, such as continuous renal replacement therapy, therapeutic plasma exchange, hemoperfusion, DNA immunoadsorption. It supervises over 3000 blood purification sessions annually.
The divison is the head unit of the cooperation group for the management of childhood enuresis in Sichuan Province. It has set up a special clinic for children's nocturnal enuresis and voiding dysfunction. Urodynamic studies, contrast-enhanced ultrasonography, bio-feedback therapy and clean intermittent catheterization were performed for children.
The divison provides outstanding educational programs for students, fellows, clinicians and postgraduates majoring in pediatric nephrology, undertakes multi-level clinical teaching tasks for clinical medical undergraduates, master's students, doctoral students, and organizes the national and provincial continuing medical education programs every year.
The division is one of the specialties in the drug clinical trial institution of West China Second University Hospital of Sichuan University. It has established a biological sample bank for pediatric kidney diseases, conducted over 30 national, provincial and municipal research projects, published over 200 scientific papers (including nearly 100 papers in SCI jourals), participated in compiling 11 monographs, and won the third prize for scientific and technological progress in Sichuan province.