On October 12, 2020, “China Pituitary Relief Public Welfare Project”, funded by Shanghai Soong Ching Ling Foundation Lu Jiaxian and Gao Wenying Special Fund, was launched at Science and Education Building, Ruijin Hospital. Mrs. Zhang Ming, Secretary General of SSCLF, and Mr. Chen Erzhen, Vice President of Ruijin Hospital, unveiled the plaque of the project.

The three-year public welfare project, with the total amount of 5.15 million yuan, mainly aims at funding for national poverty-stricken pituitary tumour patients and training of grass-roots pituitary tumour subspecialists.

The initiator of the project, Professor Wu Zhebao, director of Ruijin Hospital Neurosurgery Centre for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Pituitary Prolactinoma, introduced that the current annual incidence of pituitary tumours in the population has reached up to 7.5-15/100,000 people; among China’s population of 1.4 billion people, the annual increase in pituitary tumour patients has reached up to 200,000 people. But a considerable number of patients failed to receive correct and reasonable treatment, especially the poverty-stricken pituitary tumour patients.

 “China Pituitary Relief Public Welfare Project” implements a nationwide linkage of relief methods. In addition to Shanghai Ruijin Hospital, three hospitals including First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, Union Hospital affiliated to Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University, are selected as sub-centres of the pituitary relief project, radiating the influence to the whole country. It is reported that the poverty-stricken patients seeking treatment in Ruijin Hospital and the various sub-centres are expected to receive public welfare funding ranging from 5,000 to 20,000 yuan to alleviate the financial burden brought about by the disease. At the same time, the project will carry out multi-faceted personnel training actions: “bringing in” – funding for advanced physicians coming from the grassroots; “going out” – organizing a team of experts to conduct short-term training at grass-roots hospitals in the central and western regions of China; and “online classrooms” – conducting distance education training and popularizing knowledge of pituitary tumours. Through training and subsidies, the work is promoted in the entire area, with the local standard of diagnosis and treatment improved.