To APBMT Members

Dear colleagues:

A bit before the 15th Congress of APBMT (APBMT 2010 Phuket), we announce several things of our group.

At first, we express our sincere thanks for the efforts of Professor Saengsree Jootar, Congress President, Professor Tanin Intragumtornchai, Co-President and their colleagues to organize the marvelous congress in Phuket, Thailand. Through the program, I realize that the activity of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in Thailand is great and also realize that our annual meeting has become real international congress. We expect the participants can learn a lot from the experiences of HSCT in Thailand and can exchange information each other among scientists from Asia-Pacific countries/regions as well as from other societies such as ASBMT/CIBMTR or EBMT.

The 4th APBMT Activity Survey (survey for HSCT performed in 2008), a symbol of our unity, is successfully going and its result will be presented during the coming congress. We are happy to notify you that Philippine team newly submitted their data for this survey.

It is also our pleasure that several working groups (WG) such as WG of aplastic anemia, of nutritional problems and of thalassemia have been organized. We hope each group discussion, which is planned during the congress, is productive and hope other WGs are newly proposed by scientists from various countries/regions in APBMT.

The 1st APBMT Outcome Registration has been initiated. There seems to be some problems on common registration form. Some members complain that the form contains too many items to be filled out. We understand that to complete a form is not a small job but I must say minimal essential information is necessary to make certain qualified data such as those conducted by WGs. Because of that, we rather encourage you to use our registration form, fill them out and submit them at high submission rate, which should contribute further advances of HSCT in member countries.

We believe the name WBMT (Worldwide Network for Blood and Marrow Transplantation) has become familiar among APBMT members. In this congress, several core members of WBMT will attend to give new information and to discuss with APBMT members. APBMT has now 16 member countries/regions and is expanding its activities. But it is also true that there are 18 countries of Asia-Pacific Region where no HSCT activity has been captured. HSCT is a treatment modality which has high cost benefit therefore, this might be more needed in these countries. To expand this treatment modality to these countries, we may need the collaboration of APBMT member countries as well as the collaboration of the other international societies which gathered in WBMT. At this opportunity, we expect all the participants deepen the understanding to each other.

October 15,2010

Yoshihisa Kodera
Chairman, Executive Board

Minako Iida
Yoshiko Atsuta
Rie Hyo
Ayami Yoshimi
Ritsuro Suzuki
APBMT Secretariat /Data Center

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