We are the combination of four hospitals: the General Hospital, the Children’s Hospital, the Women’s Hospital and the Traumatology, Rehabilitation and Burns Hospital. We are part of the Vall d’Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus: a world-leading health park where healthcare plays a crucial role.
Patients are the centre and the core of our system. We are professionals committed to quality care and our organizational structure breaks down the traditional boundaries between departments and professional groups, with an exclusive model of knowledge areas.
Would you like to know what your stay at Vall d'Hebron will be like? Here you will find all the information.
The commitment of Vall d'Hebron University Hospital to innovation allows us to be at the forefront of medicine, providing first class care adapted to the changing needs of each patient.
Minority diseases, also called rare diseases, are those that affect between 5% and 7% of the population. They are very varied, affecting different parts of the body with a wide range of symptoms that change both between diseases and within the same disease.
It is estimated that some 30 million people in the EU, 3 million in Spain, and around 350,000 in Catalonia suffer from one.
The complexity of most rare diseases requires multidisciplinary care involving expert professionals from different medical specialties, personalized nursing management, psychological support, and social work, among other services.
At Vall d’Hebron, more than 200 specialist professionals care for over 40,000 patients with rare diseases. We are one of the hospitals in Spain that treats the highest number of rare conditions and one of the leading centers in Europe in this field. As of 2025, we are part of 20 European Reference Networks for rare diseases (ERN), 43 Spanish reference centers (CSUR), and the 12 expertise networks of the Department of Health (XUEC). This makes the hospital a highly specialized center for caring for these diseases throughout the entire life journey—from birth to adulthood—through a networked system that allows sharing resources and expertise with other hospitals and centers in the region.
The professionals across the various units and centers aim to improve patient access to diagnosis, information, and personalized care, as well as support research through:
The Rare Diseases Committee aims to establish a common framework for rare disease care at the hospital, identify and align the different initiatives (clinical, training, and research), deploy prioritized action lines, and monitor and evaluate outcomes in order to propose and implement improvements.
The concentration of patients with rare diseases increases knowledge and promotes research. Our Research Institute (VHIR) is a leader in both basic and clinical research. More than 14 basic research groups focus on studying rare diseases to improve diagnosis and develop new therapeutic approaches. We are the center in Spain with the highest number of clinical trials involving orphan drugs, including gene therapies, and we have a leading unit dedicated to the development of advanced therapies.
For more information, you can contact the rare disease team at: minoritaries@vallhebron.cat
The Paediatrics Department at the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital integrates several sections and units of specific paediatric areas.
We provide assistance from birth to adolescence. As an integrated center at the Vall de Hebrón University Hospital, we facilitate the transfer of child patients to adults within the same hospital.
Vall de Hebrón Children's Hospital is one of the centers with the most capacity to solve complex pediatric processes in Catalonia and Spain.
The Vall d'Hebron University Hospital's Paediatric Department includes various sections and units from specific paediatric areas (paediatric subspecialities):
The Infectious Pathology and Immunodeficiencies unit of Paediatrics is a hospitalisation unit dedicated to the study and treatment of these diseases in children, and also acts as a consultancy in the diagnosis and control of complex infections in immunosuppressed patients. It was created in January 1996 for the study and treatment of paediatric diseases of infectious origin, but over time, the increase in cases of children with infections, for various reasons, means the unit has taken over more functions to face new challenges.
In our Unit, we treat infants with infections and immunodeficiencies, a pathology that has become increasingly important in recent years. This increase in cases is due to several reasons, such as the emergence of AIDS, the emergence of almost forgotten pathogens, the importing of diseases from other geographical areas, the increase in opportunistic infections as a consequence of more aggressive treatments and more invasive diagnostic techniques, and the presence of new patterns of microbial resistance.
The Immunology Department is responsible for diagnosis, teaching and research in Immunology at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital (HUVH) and its catchment area. The key processes it performs are: Immunology diagnostic tests and in the design of diagnostic protocols, clinical immunology outpatient clinic, specialised teaching of immunology, pre- and postgraduate, and research, development and innovation through their own projects in the fields of primary immunodeficiencies, autoimmunity and consulting in the design and execution of the research projects of other groups in the Hospital.
Immunology training itinerary
The Immunology Department is part of VH Clinical Laboratories, some of the largest in Europe with more than 16,000,000 determinations / year. It is located in new premises (2014) on the ground floor of the VH Clinical Laboratories building (approximately 400 m2). It is organised by processes under the framework of the ISO 9001 quality management system: Autoimmunity, Hypersensitivity, Cellular Immunology, Immunogenetics (HLA and disease), Immunogenetics (Study of primary immunodeficiencies), Immunoproteins, Monitoring of immunotherapy and Clinical Immunology Clinic. It actively participates in the clinical processes of the Hospital on multidisciplinary case management committees for amyloidosis, multiple myeloma, primary immunodeficiencies and complex glomerulopathies.
It also works bilaterally with other departments in the clinical processes relating to autoimmunity, allergies, reproductive immunology and cancer. The department is part of the Transversal Immunology Programme on the Vall d'Hebron Campus, which facilitates collaboration with other professionals working on immunology issues in other research groups. This enables the department to have 3 different programmes of sessions covering:
The department comprises 7 immunology specialists, 2 with a more clinical profile and 5 with a laboratory profile, as well as a molecular immunology expert. There is also one supervisor and 12 technicians.1 administrator. 1 resident per year (currently 3) and an immunology pre-doc.
There are professionals linked to the immunology department who are involved in different processes:
The Cerebrospinal Fluid Laboratory is the result of a collaboration agreement with VHIR-CEMCAT (Multiple Sclerosis Centre of Catalonia), to carry out complex care tests and implement new biomarkers in multiple sclerosis in healthcare practice (translational research). This process involves a principal researcher from the Clinical Neuroimmunology research group and a technician.
The allergy unit, in conjunction with the immunology department, is actively involved in drawing up reports interpreting the results of molecular allergy testing of patients from other centres. This added value means the department is even more useful for customers.
To improve the coordination of the paediatric primary immunodeficiency process. The Immunology Department shares a biologist with the Paediatric Infectious Pathology and Immunodeficiency Unit. This biologist takes on tasks shared between the clinic and the lab.
There is collaboration with the Translational Bioinformatics Research Group to determine the pathogenicity of gene mutations in patients with primary immunodeficiency. The complementary nature of immunological, genetic, bioinformatic and functional studies of proteins allows a personalised diagnosis of patients with primary immunodeficiency, which in turn helps find treatments that are more appropriate to the molecular pathology in question.
The Immunological Regulation and Immunotherapy Research Group provides methodological and technical support to the Department of Immunology in applied research subjects. The group leader is currently co-IP on a research project (on Family Haemophagocytic Syndrome) and this collaboration will be included as part of a resident’s thesis.
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