Doctor fights rare disease in northwest China

Lanzhou [China], May 5 (ANI/Xinhua): At nine o'clock in the morning, Cao Yunshan walks into the ward he works in that cares for patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH) and starts his busy day.
Cao is a specialist in the treatment of PH, and particularly focuses on fibrosing mediastinitis caused PH, which is a rare and fatal disease.
From 2015 to 2016, Cao worked at Massachusetts General Hospital, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School in the United States, as a postdoctoral fellow. Now, he works at Gansu Provincial Hospital in northwest China as the chief physician of the cardiopulmonary vascular department.
According to a rough estimate, the prevalence of PH may be higher in high altitude areas than in low altitude areas, and higher in rural areas than in cities.
"High altitude hypoxia is one of the important causes of PH. At present, the number of patients with PH in China is conservatively estimated to be 5 million to 8 million, most of whom live in western China. That's why I decided to come back to Gansu," Cao said.
Since 2018, Cao's team has treated nearly 1,000 patients with PH. PH happens when the pressure in the blood vessels leading from the heart to the lungs is too high. Then the arteries in the lungs can narrow, and the blood does not flow as well as it should, resulting in less oxygen in the blood.
Symptoms of PH include shortness of breath, fainting, and chest pain. Now it has developed into a disease that seriously threatens human physical and mental health.
Chen, a 52-year-old patient with PH, said that before he came to Cao's team for interventional treatment, he had been to many well-known hospitals in China. The medical bills, travel expenses, and accommodation fees amounted to nearly 1 million yuan (157,320 U.S. dollars) from 2016 to now.
"When I was at my worst, I even thought about ending my life in order not to drag down my family," said Chen.
The treatment from Cao's team turned out to be effective. "I bought 100 balloons in order to practice expanding my lung capacity after returning home, and I have suggested all my fellow patients receive treatment here," he said.
"Cao's team has been rooted in western China for a long time. They have devoted themselves to the research of PH, which is of great significance for millions of patients with PH since they can receive the best treatment locally," said Jing Zhicheng, chief physician of Peking Union Medical College Hospital.
Every year on May 5th, World Pulmonary Hypertension Day, Cao's team conducts voluntary medical diagnostics and delivers lectures at primary-level hospitals, in order to carry out screening of PH, raise awareness and understanding of this frequently under and misdiagnosed disease, and promote research that will help find the cure of PH.
"Today is World PH Day, and we hope the whole society can pay more attention to patients with PH, to the importance of improving their quality of life. We also hope that World PH Day can bring global attention to patients with rare diseases," Cao said. (ANI/Xinhua)