Recipient of Guangdong Provincial May 1st Labor Medal

Core Research Fields: Infectious Diseases, Hepatology

Clinical practice primarily focuses on prevention and treatment of viral hepatitis and its complications such as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Since 2008, the research team has established a specialized long-term follow-up cohort for chronic hepatitis B, with serial serum and other biological specimens preserved. The cohort currently includes 3,400 active participants and over 20,000 serial serum samples, making it the largest and longest-running research cohort of its kind in China.

Based on this cohort, basic research on early HCC diagnosis was carried out. A classifier composed of seven miRNAs was identified, which can detect hepatocellular carcinoma one year earlier than AFP, the conventional HCC diagnostic biomarker. Thanks to this research, the resectability rate of HCC cases within the follow-up cohort has risen from the 20% reported in existing literature to 90%. The relevant research findings were published in The Lancet Oncology, and one invention patent has been granted.

Liver failure carries a high mortality rate and poses great challenges for clinical management. The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University admits more than 50% of all liver failure cases across Guangdong Province. To address this critical clinical difficulty, Professor Chong Yutian has conducted a series of systematic clinical and translational studies, yielding remarkable outcomes: the mortality rate of liver failure has been reduced from 70% to 40%.