The Department has carried out bone marrow transplantation since 1985. It has done more than 300 cases since then of which more than a hundred were for acute leukemias. The number of cases has increased dramatically in recent years with referrals from other countries. The Department performs a range of 40-50 cases of bone marrow and peripheral stem transplants per year. The overall survival rate for the various risk groups is comparable to the top centres around the world. In order to ensure a rapid search for unrelated donors for patients without a HLA matches sibling donors, we work in close collaboration with the Bone Marrow Donor Registry and the WHO Immunology Centre. We are constantly trying to improve on the transplant outcome by a variety of strategies including aggressive and innovative management of Graft Versus Host Disease. New programmes include the use of non-myelablative conditioning regimens for high risk patients and autologous stem cell transplants for autoimmune disorders.

In addition, through the local Bone Marrow Donor Registry, we have ties with the Hong Kong & Taiwan Registries, as well as the National Marrow Donor Programme in the United States. Recently, we saw the start of the local umbilical cord blood bank as a joint effort between our Department, the Bone Marrow Donor Registry and the National Blood Centre. Collectively these efforts ensure that at present a local or regional patient has reasonably good chance of finding a suitable donor.