Professor Haiquan Chen is a surgeon-scientist and a pioneer in developing individualized surgical strategies for early-stage Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). He has published over 290 peer-reviewed articles, including seven ESI highly cited papers, in leading journals such as Cancer Cell, Journal of Clinical Oncology , Journal of Thoracic Oncology, Annals of Surgery, The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, and British Journal of Surgery . He is an active member of International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS), Society of Thoracic Surgery (STS), European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS), and Asian Society of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery (ASCVTS). Professor Chen is the leading Co-chair of the 2023 AATS Expert Consensus Document on the Management of Subsolid Lung Nodules. In recognition of his exceptional contributions, he has been awarded with both Gerald and Elaine Schuster Distinguished Lectureship and David J. Sugarbaker Lectureship in Thoracic Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard University.

Professor Chen's work has identified young, non-smoking females as an emerging demographic with a high incidence of ground-glass opacity (GGO)-featured lung cancer, revealing novel epidemiological characteristics of the disease. He characterized the unique biological behavior of GGO-featured lung cancer, defining it as a “distinct clinical subtype and a special stage in its natural evolution.” Based on this, he proposed a “surgical curative time window” for early-stage lung adenocarcinoma. This critical period ensures surgical intervention provides a definitive cure while minimizing the risks of overdiagnosis and overtreatment.

Professor Chen introduced the concept of “Minimally Invasive 3.0”, integrating organ preservation, incision minimization, and systemic optimization to improve both survival and quality of life. He pioneered the intraoperative frozen-section-guided sublobar resection technique, achieving 96% diagnostic accuracy and sparing 54% of patients from unnecessary lobectomy, with a five-year recurrence-free survival rate of 100%. He proposed the “selective mediastinal lymph node dissection” which is a novel approach that balances oncologic efficacy with the preservation of immune function. Through a prospective, multi-center clinical trial, Professor Chen has validated this strategy with 100% accuracy. This approach has been recognized as a precision surgery in the era of precision medicine. Furthermore, his multi-center, phase III, randomized clinical trial demonstrated that mediastinal lymph node dissection is unnecessary for GGO-dominant lung adenocarcinoma. These findings support a paradigm shift toward more individualized surgical strategies in lung cancer, which preserve immune function without compromising oncologic efficacy.