Pulmonology · Boao Lecheng cluster
COPD and Pulmonary Fibrosis Treatment in China, Hainan
One flight of stairs leaves you breathless, the inhalers have been changed more than once, and the spirometry reads worse every year. In the Hainan cluster a cell technology is permitted for COPD — but it suits few people and does not undo established fibrosis, and we say that before anything else. The first step is free: Dr Yang reads your records and answers in writing whether flying makes sense. "You do not need to come" is an answer too.
About the condition
Before you think about travelling
If your breathlessness has worsened sharply over the past few days, there is more sputum and it has changed colour, you have a temperature, your saturation has dropped below your usual level, or by evening your thoughts are muddled and you are drowsy — that is an exacerbation, and it is settled in the nearest hospital, not by a trip. The same goes for swollen legs and chest pain. Stabilise at home first; the conversation about Hainan comes afterwards.
Outside an exacerbation, time works against you quietly: every exacerbation that was not prevented, and every year of smoking, takes away lung volume that does not come back. Fibrosis follows the same logic — antifibrotic drugs slow the loss, but they do not win back what has gone. So the question is not "to go or not" but "what am I losing while I wait". Whether there are any grounds at all can be seen from your records without going anywhere: Dr Yang reads them.
Why people come
The situations we see most often
If one of these is yours, it is worth establishing the stage and the options.
- Breathlessness grows, the regimen does not change
The same inhaler for the third year, spirometry done long ago, and nobody has counted how many exacerbations you had this year or how they ended.
- Fibrosis was diagnosed on a chest X-ray
There was no high-resolution CT, or it was read by someone other than a pulmonologist; antifibrotics were never mentioned, and the breathlessness is growing.
- The diagnosis kept changing: bronchitis, asthma, COPD
Inhalers were tried at random, spirometry with a bronchodilator test was never done, and what you actually have is still unclear.
- Oxygen at home, but no regime
You bought the concentrator yourselves; how many hours, at what flow, and whether you need it when walking — nobody has worked that out from blood gases.
- You want the truth about cells
You have read about stem cells for COPD and want to hear from a physician which part is reality and which is advertising.
Standard care first
What is normally done before anything else
We do not propose replacing proven treatment. On the contrary: without it, any next step loses its meaning.
Standard therapy comes first — and most of the time the question is settled at that level. What should already be done at home before any trip:
- Stopping smoking — the only thing proven to slow the loss of lung function in COPD. Without it any treatment, cell-based included, works at a loss
- Inhalers chosen by class, not by habit — long-acting bronchodilators of one or two classes; an inhaled steroid only with frequent exacerbations and high blood eosinophils. Inhaler technique is checked by a physician
- Antifibrotics for fibrosis — a class of drugs that roughly halves the rate at which lung volume is lost. Prescribed by a pulmonologist from high-resolution CT and spirometry, and in most countries available at home
- Pulmonary rehabilitation and vaccines — paced walking with saturation monitoring, breathing training, influenza and pneumococcal vaccines. They cut exacerbations and admissions, and they are prescribed least of all
- Oxygen and ventilation when indicated — long-term oxygen therapy for a persistently low blood oxygen level, night-time non-invasive ventilation for carbon dioxide retention. Decided by a pulmonologist from blood gases, not from how you feel
Cell-based approaches neither replace nor cancel this list. If you have been through standard therapy and it has not held — send your records: Dr Yang will say whether anything further is worth considering.
Where a programme begins
No programme starts without a work-up
Diagnostics come first: they decide whether the method is indicated in your case and to what extent. From here there are two possible next steps.
The regenerative approach
What the cluster additionally considers
On medical grounds — as an addition to standard care, never instead of it.
- Diagnosis first, method second
COPD and fibrosis share one word — breathlessness — and are treated in opposite ways: one needs inhalers, in the other they are close to useless. One stay gathers what at home stretches over months: high-resolution CT, spirometry with a bronchodilator test, diffusing capacity, a walk test, blood gases, echocardiography. A pulmonologist looks at it as a whole and reviews the diagnosis, not just the regimen. Often the outcome is not a technology but a different class of inhaler, an oxygen regime and rehabilitation.
- What exists for your diagnosis, and what does not
What there is: the zone permits clinical use of an airway basal stem cell technology for moderate-to-severe COPD and interstitial lung disease. One hospital of the cluster applies it; admission is only on a physician's decision after an in-person assessment, and selection is strict. The evidence is early-phase: no cell-based medicine is registered for this indication anywhere in the world. Compare it not with the rest of China but with what you can get at home: if the same is done in your own city, there is no reason to fly for it.
- How the result is measured
Not by how you feel. The baselines are fixed before anything starts: spirometry, diffusing capacity, metres and saturation in the walk test, a breathlessness scale, exacerbations per year. Checks at three and six months with your own pulmonologist at home. Success is a slower loss and more metres without stopping; failure is numbers that keep falling — and it is called failure, not an "individual response". Established fibrosis and tissue destroyed by emphysema are reversed by no method, cell-based included.
Methods
Which directions may be considered
What suits your case is determined by a physician after diagnostics.
Lung work-up built around your diagnosis
The off-the-shelf check-up: 4 days and 3 nights, around 150 parameters. In COPD and fibrosis, high-resolution CT, spirometry, diffusing capacity and a walk test are added to it.
Cellular technologies in the cluster
What the zone's regulator permits, how a technology is admitted to clinical use, and how it differs from a registered medicine. Reference points for the cost of cell programmes are on the Pricing page.
Pulmonary rehabilitation
Paced exercise with saturation monitoring, breathing and inhaler-technique training, an oxygen regime. Often this, not a technology, is the main result of the trip.
Traditional Chinese medicine
Led by Master Zhi Ning: breathing exercises, acupuncture and herbal medicine as support. It does not settle inflammation and replaces neither inhalers nor antifibrotics.
Plainly about the limits
When the regenerative route is not for you
This matters more than any marketing: knowing in advance when the method is not considered.
If you have been told there is no treatment, we do not promise that we have one. Sometimes the records show a trip would give nothing but lost time and money. We will say so plainly. These are the situations where the answer is: you do not need to come:
- An exacerbation or a recent admission — until your breathing is back to its usual level, flying is dangerous. Stabilise at home first; a trip is discussed some weeks after discharge
- Resting saturation below 92% without oxygen — flying is possible only after a fitness-to-fly assessment and with oxygen on board; your pulmonologist at home decides that, not we
- Standard therapy is not exhausted — inhalers not chosen by class, no rehabilitation, still smoking. Better to start at home: it exists in your own city and costs less
- End-stage disease, or the hope of "getting the lungs back" — on continuous oxygen with minimal reserve, the question belongs to transplant specialists where you live, and destroyed tissue is restored by no method; anyone promising otherwise is selling hope
If the cluster physician says there is no reason to come and the regimen can be set at home, we pass that on as it stands. The review is free — and a refusal is a result too. We do not sell a method — we organise access to a physician's decision. Send your records · Write on WhatsApp
How it works
From your records to coming home
- 11. You write on WhatsApp or send your records
Phone photographs of your records are fine, a complete file is not needed. You can even start with no documents at all — describe the situation in words. We translate where needed, Dr Yang reads, you get an answer. Free.
- 22. The answer: is there any point in coming
In writing, usually within one or two working days. No diagnosis is made online — the approach is set by the physician who will see you; the answer says only whether flying is worth it, and for what.
- 33. Route and estimate before tickets
A route is built around your diagnosis: what is checked, how many days, in which hospital of the cluster. The estimate is sent before you buy tickets. Whether Hainan's 30-day visa-free entry covers your passport is checked before booking; whether you need oxygen in transit you settle with your pulmonologist at home.
- 44. Arrival and diagnostics
A direct flight to Sanya, then a road transfer to the cluster; the coordinator meets you and interprets at appointments. Work-up, case conference, the physician's decision — a refusal here is as much a physician's result as a go-ahead.
- 55. Going home
You leave with a discharge summary, a regimen and checkpoints for your own pulmonologist. Complications after you return are managed by physicians where you live: neither we nor the cluster hospital can help at a distance, and that has to be accepted before the trip.
Why here
What the Boao Lecheng cluster offers
- Dr Yang reads your records
A partner physician of the cluster, medically trained in Russia. Russian-language records he reads in the original, without an interpreter; other languages are translated first. He is the person you are writing to.
- You know before you buy a ticket
If there are grounds, the answer names what exactly is available in the zone on the date of the enquiry. If what you need is not in the zone, you learn that before you buy a ticket.
- No mark-up on medicine
The hospital issues the bill and you pay its price directly at the cash desk. We earn on coordination — a separate line in the estimate that you see in advance.
- A pilot zone with its own rules
We are not a clinic and we do not treat. The cluster's state hospitals treat — they hold the licences and the responsibility. We answer for the organisation and for making sure you are properly understood. Drugs and technologies not registered elsewhere in China are legally available in the zone.
Common questions
The essentials
Send your scans — and get a straight answer
A specialist physician in the cluster will look at your stage and say whether the regenerative route is worth considering. The review is free; we do not diagnose online.