REVIEW Current status of hematopoietic stem cell transplantations in Vietnam T van Be, T van Binh, NT Binh, TQ Tuan, H Nghia and BM Hien Clinical Hematology Department, The Blood Transfusion and Hematology Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam In Vietnam, the first three cases of Allo-BMT were successfully performed in 1995 at the Blood Transfusion and Hematology Hospital (BT-H) of Ho Chi Minh City. Donors were HLA fully matched siblings (HLA-A, HLA- B and HLA-DRB1). The patients were a 26-year-old man with CML in chronic phase (CP), a 12-year-old woman with b-thalassemia/Hb E and a 9-year-old girl with b-thalassemia/Hb E. All patients were engrafted with the median time to recover ANC40.5  10 9 /l, and platelet count 420  10 9 /l was 16 and 38 days. At 12 years after transplantation, all three patients are alive and well. Today, Vietnam has five SCT centers; in the north, there are three centers: 108 Military Hospital, Pediatric Institute and Blood transfusion and Hematology Institute; in the middle of Vietnam is Hue Hospital and in the south, the BT-H Hospital of Ho Chi Minh City. Until now, 65 patients have had SCT in Vietnam; among them, 52 patients had SCT at the BT-H Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City. Because of no connection of data between different SCT centers, we present here only the results performed at the BT-H Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City. With Allo-SCT we performed 19 cases with 3 procedures: BMT (4 cases), PBSC (6 cases) and cord blood transplantation (9 cases); patients were diagnosed with AML (n ¼ 7), ALL (n ¼ 1), CML (n ¼ 5) and b-thalassemia (n ¼ 6). Following trans- plantation, 7 patients (36.84%) relapsed, 12 (63.16%) remained alive and overall survival times: 6.81 ± 1.35 years, disease-free survival times: 6.69 ± 1.4 years (range 0.5–12 years). With Auto-SCT: since November 1996, we have performed 33 cases of autologous PBSC transplant- ation consisting of without cryopreservation (24 cases) and with cryopreservation (9 cases); patients were diagnosed with AML in CR1 (n ¼ 21), ALL in CR1 (n ¼ 6), CML in CP (n ¼ 5) and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in CR1 (n ¼ 1). The median age of the patients was 35 years (range 18– 46). The median time to recover ANC 40.5  10 9 /l and platelet count 420  10 9 /l was 14 days (range 9–25 days) and 35 days (range 9–120 days). Following transplant- ation, 18 patients (54.50%) relapsed, 15 (45.45%) remained alive and overall survival times: 5.74 ± 0.82 years and disease-free survival times: 5.48 ± 0.92 years. There was no statistically significant difference of overall survival and disease-free survival between Allo-SCT and Auto- SCT procedures (P40.05). These preliminary data suggest that HSCTs have been used as one of the standard treatments for hematological diseases and malignancies in Vietnam and that cord blood is an alternative source of hematopoietic stem cells for allogeneic transplantation in children. Bone Marrow Transplantation (2008) 42, S146–S148; doi:10.1038/bmt.2008.145 Keywords: SCT Vietnam; hematopoietic SCT; trans plantation Introduction Vietnam is the easternmost nation on the Indo-China Peninsula, and on the east coast lies the South China Sea. With a population of over 85 million, Vietnam is the thirteenth most populous country in the world. The Vietnam BMT program started in 1993 and the first center for BMT was the Blood Transfusion and Hematology Hospital (BT-H), Ho Chi Minh City. To date, Vietnam has five transplantation centers:  North Vietnam has three transplantation centers: 108th Military Institute, Pediatric Institute and Blood Trans- fusion and Hematology Institute  Middle Vietnam has one center: Hue Central Hospital  South Vietnam has one center: BT-H Hospital of Ho Chi Minh City From 1995 to 2007, Vietnam has had 65 patients who were treated with hematopoietic SCT (HSCT) procedure. Today, HSCT has been widely used as one of the standard treatments for hematological diseases and malignancies in Vietnam. History  1993: BT-H Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City (South Vietnam) created the first BMT unit and delegated five medical personnel to be trained at the National Medical Institute of Taiwan.  1995: The first BMT was done in the case of a 26-year- old male patient with CML at the BT-H Hospital, Ho Correspondence: Professor T van Binh, Blood Transfusion and Hematology Hospital, 201 Pham viet Chanh Street, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City 84, Vietnam. E-mail: binhtran@saigonnet.vn Bone Marrow Transplantation (2008) 42, S146–S148 & 2008 Macmillan Publishers Limited All rights reserved 0268-3369/08 $30.00 www.nature.com/bmt