Hospital boosts genetic therapy, surgery for eye, ENT diseases

The Eye and ENT Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai announced that it has set up a gene and cell treatment center to develop advanced therapies for deafness, eye disease and neck tumor.

The center will set up teams involved in clinical and scientific research, engineering technology development and clinical transformation of new technology, officials of the hospital told the 11th International Conference on Cholesteatoma and Ear Surgery, the world's top medical conference in the field.

The conference was held for the first time in China. Over 500 top medical experts on ear surgery from 34 countries and regions participated the October 19-23 meeting in Shanghai, discussing the latest development and novel technologies and researches on topics like ear tumor, complicated ear infection, artificial cochlea implantation and hearing reconstruction, according to the Eye and ENT Hospital of Fudan University, which hosted the meeting.

The hospital has started research like the first clinical trial on genetic treatment of inherited deafness, developed China's first genetic medicine targeting OTOF mutation for deafness and clinical trials on a genetic eye disease due to RPGR mutation, officials revealed.

There are 466 million people with serious hearing disorder in the world and over 80 million blind people. In China, about 70 million people suffer serious hearing disorder and there are about 30,000 deaf children born each year, 60 percent of them due to hereditary reasons.