Xiangya Hospital ranked 16th among the 100 most competitive hospitals in China in 2015.291
In the 1970s, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University became one of the earliest hospitals in China to carry out organ transplantation. It is a leader in the field in Hunan Province. In 1979, it conducted the first allogeneic kidney transplant in the province. In 1985, it performed China’s first heterotopic liver transplant. In 1987, it began carrying out pancreas transplants. In 1994, it conducted the first heart transplant in central and southern China.
The Hunan Organ Transplant Research Institute was established in 1995, and its organ transplant center was founded in September 2004.292
According to its 2001 yearbook records, Xiangya Hospital was the site of the Ministry of Health’s Hepatobiliary and Enteric Surgery Research Center, a key clinical site for the Ministry. The Center currently has 129 medical, teaching, and research personnel, among whom 12 hold professorships or equivalent titles and 26 are associate professors or equivalent. The Organ Transplant Center is subordinate to the Research Center.293
Since 2002, the hospital has performed 38 liver transplants for severe acute hepatitis and liver failure patients.294 Patients with severe hepatitis live for an average of three days after hospitalization, for which “the only solution is an emergency liver transplant.” Emergency liver transplants requires procuring livers on demand.
According to Xianya Hospital’s website, on May 26, 2005 it completed one liver, 6 kidney, and 8 corneal transplants.295 On September 3, 2005, it performed 7 heart, liver, and kidney transplants.296 In early February 2006, it completed two liver transplants within a 72-hour period.297
On April 28, 2006, the organ transplant center conducted 17 transplants in one day, including seven advanced-stage uremic patients simultaneously. On the same day, it also completed two liver transplants and 8 corneal transplants. The hospital claimed, “Heart, liver, kidney and other major organ transplants have become routine surgeries, signifying that Xiangya Hospital’s transplantation has moved towards a new stage.”298
The hospital has close connections with the military and employs Academicians Li Leishi and Liu Zhihong from the Nanjing General Hospital Kidney Transplant Center of the Nanjing Military Command.299
Its ophthalmology department was one of China’s earliest institutions to conduct corneal transplants; it has established an eye bank.300