Following the site visit to the International Spinal Cord Injury Treatment Center, Kunming Tongren Hospital in August 2018, the Committee members returned their written reports that raised many critical issues and provided constructive suggestions to improve the design of the next clinical trial. In addition, new promising treatment strategies have been reported in the SCI research field.  

Upon the recommendation of Academician Kwok-Fai So, the Committee decided to form a Kunming Working Group (KWG) for Repairing Spinal Cord Injury. Prof. So will serve as a consultant of the KWG; Ms. Suzanne Poon will serve as the Honorary Chair of the KWG; and Director Hui Zhu and Professor Xiao-Ming Xu will serve as Co-Chairs of the KWG. The goal of the KWG is to mobilize the strength of a critical mass of distinct international leaders in spinal cord injury research and treatment to facilitate better communication, interaction, and collaboration.   Members of the KWG will meet annually to review new advances in SCI treatment and to incorporate these advances into the design of new clinical trials.  The first meeting was held in Kunming between September 8 and 10, 2019.  This meeting focused on the discussion of designing the next clinical trial to be conducted in the nearest future.    

The clinical trial "A Randomized and Prospective Controlled Clinical Trial of Surgical Decompression/Untethering combined with Weight Bearing Rehabilitation in Patients with Acute and Chronic Spinal Cord Injury" was fully sponsored by HKSCIFund and was conducted at International Spinal Cord Injury Treatment Center of Kunming. The clinical trial was started in July 2015 and completed successfully in June 2018. To summarize this clinical trial and, more importanly, to obtain in-depth feedback and recommendation from leaders in the field, an International Reviewing Committee was formed to review and evaluate this clinical trial. Professor Kwok-Fai So was the Chairman of the Committee, and 12 international leaders/experts in the field were invited as the Committee Members. HKSCIFund supported and financed the holding of a site visit by the Committee Members to the International Spinal Cord Injury Treatment Center from August 27 to 28, 2018.