Photo: Screenshot from the official website of Jinan Municipal Health Commission

The Tianqiao People's Hospital, a second-class hospital in Jinan, East China's Shandong Province, has been ordered to stop unauthorized use of cell therapy in tumor treatment. Further actions will be taken based on the investigation results in accordance with laws and regulations, local medical authorities said on Sunday.

Both immune cell and stem cell therapies are key areas in global medicine, with increasingly abundant research results. However, their effectiveness or safety is still largely in the verification stage. The high incidence of cancer and the growing population of cancer patients have created a huge clinical demand and commercial market, leading to profit-driven irregularities, according to The Paper.

The immune cell therapy involves extracting immune cells from a patient's body, culturing and expanding them in vitro, and then reinfusing them back into the patient, according to the report by The Paper. This process is akin to increasing the number of "soldiers" attacking tumor cells, thereby enhancing the patient's ability to fight cancer.

However, driven by interests, these cell technologies, which are still at the research stage, are used by some institutions for profit, advertised as miracle drugs or technologies, with patients being treated as experimental targets.

In response to media reports of Tianqiao People's Hospital unapproved implementation of immune cell clinical treatment, Jinan immediately assembled a joint investigation team under the municipal health commission and including multiple departments such as the Municipal Market Supervision Bureau, to investigate the hospital, according to a statement released by the team on Sunday.

After preliminary investigation, the Tianqiao People's Hospital was confirmed to have used unapproved cell therapy. The hospital has been ordered to halt such treatment immediately, and further actions will be taken following legal review, according to the statement.