Division of Pediatric Oncology
Division of Pediatric Oncology

The Division of Pediatric Oncology is a specialized team dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of childhood tumors. It operates under the Department of Pediatric Hematology, which was established in our hospital in 1958. Leveraging the professional advantages of our hospital's comprehensive "Precision Diagnosis and Treatment" platform for adult oncology, it is currently the only unit within a comprehensive hospital in Guangdong Province with an independent administrative structure for a pediatric oncology department and is supported by a dedicated pediatric oncology nursing team. It serves as the incoming chair and vice-chair unit of the Pediatric Oncology Professional Committee of the Guangdong Anti-Cancer Association and is also the only unit in a comprehensive hospital pediatric department in Guangdong Province that operates both a childhood tumor specialty consultation service and an infantile hemangioma specialty clinic. Professor Li Yang currently serves as the Director of the Department of Pediatric Oncology.
The Division of Pediatric Oncology is currently a participating unit in both Guangdong provincial and national cooperative groups for the standardized diagnosis and treatment of various pediatric malignant solid tumors. In 2019, it was designated by the National and Guangdong Provincial Health Commissions as one of the first batch of units for diagnosing and treating childhood tumors such as lymphoma, neuroblastoma, bone and soft tissue sarcomas, Wilms tumor, and hepatoblastoma. It is also currently the only national hospital and Guangdong provincial cooperative group unit in Guangdong Province that integrates pediatric chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) technologies. It admits over 1,300 children with various types of tumors annually. The main disease categories include childhood lymphoma, neuroblastoma, bone and soft tissue sarcomas, hepatoblastoma, Wilms tumor, retinoblastoma, central nervous system tumors, Ewing sarcoma/primitive neuroectodermal tumor, germ cell tumors, and Langerhans cell histiocytosis, among others. The department can safely and effectively administer personalized preoperative neoadjuvant chemotherapy, postoperative chemotherapy, and palliative chemotherapy for various childhood tumors, as well as different types of radiotherapy and biological/immunotherapy. Furthermore, relying on the HSCT center within our hospital's Pediatric Hematology/Oncology ward, it can perform autologous or allogeneic HSCT for various relapsed or refractory childhood tumors.
The Division of Pediatric Oncology possesses extensive experience and follows standardized protocols in childhood tumor diagnosis and treatment. It has strong technical capabilities in the comprehensive management of pediatric solid tumors. Its treatment protocols align with those of developed countries while continuously innovating, striving to improve the survival rates for children with solid tumors.

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Featured Medical Technology

The Division of Pediatric Oncology specializes in the multidisciplinary comprehensive treatment of pediatric solid tumors. It has established the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital Pediatric Tumor Multidisciplinary Team (MDT), composed of 15 specialty groups from our hospital, including Pediatric Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery, Neurosurgery, Urology, Hepatobiliary Surgery, Maxillofacial Surgery, Otolaryngology, Ophthalmology, Radiation Oncology, Pathology, Medical Imaging, Nuclear Medicine, Ultrasound, Biotherapy Center, and Rehabilitation Medicine. This team regularly conducts multidisciplinary consultations for complex pediatric tumor cases to establish accurate diagnoses and formulate effective, integrated multidisciplinary treatment plans. Our pediatric tumor MDT consultations are open to all children with complex tumor cases from across society and can be scheduled through the outpatient department. The Department of Pediatric Oncology currently operates specialty outpatient clinics, a dedicated inpatient ward, and a day chemotherapy unit. The outpatient services include chief physician, associate chief physician, and general specialty clinics, as well as dedicated pediatric oncology clinics and special needs clinics, offering a range of specialized services.
In recent years, the Division of Pediatric Oncology has pioneered the use of arsenic trioxide combined with chemotherapy for treating children with Stage 4/M neuroblastoma (NB) and refractory/recurrent alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma (ARMS), achieving favorable outcomes. This regimen has significantly lower costs for patients and improves efficacy by nearly 30% compared to traditional induction chemotherapy, creating conditions for further enhancing the eventual disease-free survival rates and consolidation therapy outcomes for such high-risk, refractory pediatric tumors. Simultaneously, by employing domestically leading allogeneic or haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) technologies, the department has achieved comprehensive treatment outcomes for refractory/recurrent pediatric tumors like high-risk neuroblastoma that are at an advanced level both domestically and internationally, earning a certain degree of recognition.
The Division of Pediatric Oncology has achieved good therapeutic results in treating vascular anomalies (primarily including lymphangiomas, hemolymphangiomas, various vascular malformations, visceral hemangioendotheliomas, arteriovenous hemangiomas, infantile hemangiomas, and Kasabach-Merritt syndrome, among others) using medications such as propranolol, sirolimus, steroids, and vincristine. This approach allows patients to avoid surgical or interventional procedures and is associated with minimal side effects.

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Scientific Research Results

Physicians at all levels within the Division of Pediatric Oncology undertake undergraduate teaching, clinical internship supervision for eight-year program students, as well as course instruction and training for postgraduates and visiting physicians. Professor Li Yang, Director of the Department of Pediatric Oncology, serves as a flight inspection and evaluation expert for pediatric standardized residency training bases under the Chinese Medical Doctor Association. She is also currently an inaugural standing committee member of the Pediatrics Professional Committee of the Guangdong Medical Education Association and an inaugural standing committee member of the Clinical Standardized Training and Management Professional Committee of Sun Yat-sen University, among other positions.
In recent years, to identify already-marketed drugs that can effectively treat high-risk neuroblastoma and explore their administration methods, the Pediatric Oncology team has conducted a series of in vitro experiments and clinical studies on arsenic trioxide combined with "personalized" chemotherapy regimens for treating Hedgehog signaling pathway-driven tumors such as neuroblastoma and alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma. Related research projects have received funding from two Guangdong Natural Science Foundation General Programs. The department leads two national multicenter clinical trials: one on arsenic trioxide combined with chemotherapy for neuroblastoma (Chinese Clinical Trial Registry Number: ChiCTR1800014748; U.S. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03503864) and another for alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma (Chinese Clinical Trial Registry Number: ChiCTR1900024911). To date, the team has published over 60 first-author or corresponding-author papers in related fields, with more than 10 indexed in SCI. It has also secured and led multiple research grants, including those from the National Natural Science Foundation, the Ministry of Education Scientific Research Startup Fund for Returned Overseas Scholars, the Guangdong Natural Science Foundation, and the Guangdong Science and Technology Plan Fund.

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