Peking University Third Hospital Orthopedics: Spine, Joint and Tumor Teams

The hospital and its orthopedic department

Peking University Third Hospital was founded in 1958. It is a National Health Commission-administered tertiary general hospital and a Peking University clinical medical school, combining clinical care, teaching, research, prevention, rehabilitation and health management. Orthopedics is one of its national clinical key specialties. The main address is 49 Huayuan North Road, Haidian District, Beijing.

The orthopedic department also dates from 1958. In the 2023 Fudan national specialty reputation list, the hospital's orthopedics held position 4 — a single dated, department-level reference point, not a current ranking and not a statement about any subspecialty or individual clinician.

Three clinical directions and how they differ

The department's own history describes development across spinal degeneration, spinal tumor, spinal deformity, trauma and joint disease in older adults. Read alongside the named clinicians' profiles, three directions stand out as distinct kinds of work rather than marketing labels, and each answers a different patient question.

Degenerative and deformity spine surgery covers lumbar spinal stenosis, disc disease and spondylolisthesis, together with scoliosis and cervical and thoracic disorders. The two halves of that name are not interchangeable. A patient with stenosis wants to know what the imaging shows and what the treating surgeon proposes; a patient with a scoliosis curve wants to know whether the curve is progressing and how the whole spine is being assessed.

Hip and knee joint work is a separate team direction. It covers primary and revision hip and knee arthroplasty, osteoarthritis, joint damage in rheumatoid arthritis, osteonecrosis, dysplasia, and ligament and meniscal interests. A first knee replacement and a revision of a failed implant are both arthroplasty questions, but they are not the same question: revision work involves the existing implant, the remaining bone and the soft tissues around the joint, and the documented research interests in revision bone defects reflect that.

Spinal tumor is organized as multidisciplinary work. The department's account of a January 2024 meeting describes multidisciplinary diagnosis and treatment planning, perioperative safety, rehabilitation, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and spinal metastasis questions, with contributions from pathology, imaging, oncology, rehabilitation and other departments. That is a planning structure for complex cases; whether a particular patient is discussed in that format is a question for the team.

Why the distinction matters: a patient with a spinal metastasis and a patient with a degenerative disc problem arrive with different records and different decisions ahead. Asking which direction will review your file, and whether multidisciplinary planning applies, is more useful than asking for the department in general.

Named clinicians and their documented roles

Li Weishi is chief physician, professor and doctoral supervisor, director of orthopedics and director of spine surgery, and heads the education engineering center. He holds a national innovation leading talent distinction and is a former, not current, AO Spine China chair.

Tian Hua is chief physician, professor and a Peking University Boya Distinguished Professor, working on primary and revision hip and knee arthroplasty. His research spans prosthetic materials, soft-tissue balance, multimodal imaging, digital navigation and revision bone defects.

In the 2024 spinal-tumor account, Wei Feng is identified as head of the spinal professional group and chaired that meeting, while Liu Zhongjun is named as founder and initiator of the spinal-tumor multidisciplinary team. Li Weishi is noted there as current orthopedic chief.

For an overseas patient, the useful question is not who is most senior but who is assigned to the specific problem. A revision knee and a first-time lumbar decompression draw on different teams, and the hospital decides which clinician reviews the file.

Research: alignment, materials and devices

Spine research at the department includes spinopelvic sagittal alignment, CT-based vertebral bone density and back-muscle assessment, biomechanically adapted fusion devices, and intelligent surgery research. At an academic exchange reported on 6 May 2026, Sun Zhuoran presented Chinese-population spinopelvic sagittal reference parameters, age-related changes and related clinical research; discussion covered paraspinal muscle degeneration, pelvic compensation and dynamic alignment assessment. Visiting surgeon Jean-Charles Le Huec, a former EuroSpine president from Bordeaux, took part as a visitor, not as hospital staff. These are individualized research questions, not evidence that every patient needs fusion or correction.

Tian Hua's arthroplasty research is engineering- and imaging-oriented work around implants and alignment. It informs how materials and navigation are studied; it does not by itself establish that a particular navigation or imaging method is indicated for an individual knee.

A March 2025 Peking University Health Science Center report described a Nature Communications paper on a metamaterial scaffold designed to balance bone strain and strength beyond modulus matching alone, with enhanced osteogenesis and angiogenesis in critical bone defects. Li Weishi was a co-corresponding author with Tsinghua's Wen Peng and Peking University's Zheng Yufeng. The work involved animal implantation and tissue analysis. It is preclinical research, not a routine human bone-regeneration therapy, and no clinical eligibility follows from it.

Research at a hospital is not a bookable treatment. A trial, a laboratory finding and a device engineering study answer different questions, and participation or access is decided by the treating team under the applicable rules.

Honors, attributed to their recipients

Department-level recognition includes a 2007 Education Ministry innovation team and a 2019 Bone Joint Precision Medicine Engineering Research Center. A 2002 National Science and Technology Progress Second Prize went to cervical spondylosis diagnosis and treatment research, and a 2003 Education Ministry Science and Technology Progress First Prize to research on cervical cord injury without fracture or dislocation.

Tian Hua participated in project honors that include a 2018 Beijing Science First Prize for 3D-printed titanium orthopedic implants, a 2021 Beijing Science and Technology Progress First Prize for hip and knee replacement innovation, and a 2025 Beijing Medical Science and Technology First Prize for digital hip and knee diagnostic and treatment technology.

The multidisciplinary demonstration team honor mentioned in the 2024 spinal-tumor account is a hospital-level distinction, not a national ranking.

What to ask before a visit

Start from your existing diagnosis and any previous joint or spine surgery, and ask the hospital's team directly: which direction — degenerative or deformity spine, hip and knee arthroplasty, or spinal tumor — will review my records; if my problem is a tumor or a suspected metastasis, does it go to multidisciplinary planning, and who coordinates that; what does the treating surgeon need to see before discussing an operation; and what written plan and fee scope would apply to my situation? The treating team decides suitability and scheduling.

Orthopedic care in China

How ChinaSpecialistCare can help

The treating team decides suitability and scheduling. ChinaSpecialistCare can support an enquiry about orthopedic care in China, including specialist matching and appointment coordination, hospital and treatment coordination after acceptance, and interpretation; hospital fees are separate. A brief summary is enough to start.