On the afternoon of March 31, a symposium was held for recipients of the “New Chongqing Contribution Award”. Yuan Jiajun, Party Secretary of Chongqing, attended the meeting and delivered a speech. The conference announced the decision by the Chongqing Municipal Party Committee and government to confer the “New Chongqing Contribution Award”. Professor Qi Hongbo of Chongqing Medical University, a recipient of the award, attended and spoke at the event.
Qi Hongbo, Professor and Vice President of the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, serves as Director of the Chongqing Key Laboratory of Maternal–Fetal Medicine. He is the incoming Chair of the Perinatal Medicine Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, a National Distinguished Physician, a National Expert with Outstanding Contributions among young and middle-aged professionals, a National Health and Wellness Expert with Outstanding Contributions among young and middle-aged professionals, and a recipient of the State Council’s Special Government Allowance. With over 30 years of dedicated work in perinatal medicine, he has led his team at the forefront of critical technology development for major diseases, bringing new hope to countless families.
High-risk complications such as pernicious placenta previa are considered the leading threat to maternal and infant safety and a global medical challenge. In 2014, Qi Hongbo led his team to introduce endovascular abdominal aortic balloon technology from vascular surgery to obstetrics, solving the problem of massive obstetric hemorrhage and performing the first abdominal aortic balloon occlusion surgery for high-risk placenta previa in western China. To date, this technique has been used in over 1,200 cases at the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, achieving a 99.76% rate of uterine preservation among patients. In addition, he has led complex procedures and key technologies including high-risk placenta previa surgery and fetoscopic intrauterine surgery, attracting patients from more than ten provinces and cities to Chongqing for treatment. Thanks to his and his team’s efforts, maternal and perinatal mortality rates in Chongqing have remained the lowest in western China for several consecutive years.
He and his team published a paper in Cell, proposing the theory of “maternal multi-organ metabolic reprogramming during pregnancy”. The study identified abnormal maternal metabolic reprogramming as a core cause of multiple major obstetric complications. The findings were described by Science as a “milestone in new approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of pregnancy-related diseases” and were recognized with the First Prize of the Chongqing Science and Technology Progress Award, named one of Chongqing’s Top Ten Scientific Advances of 2024, and awarded the First Prize for Outstanding Academic Papers in Science and Technology in Sichuan and Chongqing.
Protecting maternal and infant health and contributing to the establishment of a comprehensive prenatal care and major obstetric disease treatment system in China has been Qi Hongbo’s unwavering focus. He led his team in creating reference ranges for fetal body weight estimation across all gestational stages in China and developed the first fetal growth and development curves tailored to the Chinese population, providing crucial guidance for the clinical diagnosis of fetal growth restriction (FGR). Through systematic research on the spectrum of maternal and perinatal diseases in China and their prevention and control, his team proposed prenatal care programs aligned with China’s healthcare and economic context, authored the Guidelines for Preconception and Prenatal Care, and promoted their nationwide implementation.
Qi Hongbo’s team summarized the characteristics of intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP) in China and proposed new diagnostic and treatment standards suitable for the Chinese population. This original research was cited in The Lancet and incorporated into the “2020 Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists ICP Guidelines”. He also led the WHO-funded project China Maternal Labor Study, which redefined labor standards for Chinese women. Qi authored the Chinese Medical Association’s Expert Consensus on New Labor Standards and Management (2014) and revised the 2018 WHO guidelines on normal delivery, with these achievements included as key recommendations to reduce cesarean section rates in China.
To date, Qi Hongbo has mentored a total of 186 graduate students, including 89 doctoral candidates. His team has authored or contributed to 97 Chinese Medical Association guidelines and expert consensus documents. He has also served as editor-in-chief, associate editor, or editorial board member for over 50 textbooks and monographs, covering nearly all of China’s standardized Obstetrics and Gynecology textbooks. Additionally, he has been recognized for four consecutive years (2022–2025) on the global list of the top 2% of scientists, published jointly by Stanford University and Elsevier.
(Translated by AI)
