Dr. Bach Quoc Khanh, former director of the Central Institute of Hematology,
Today, the National Conference on Hematology - Blood Transfusion in 2022 opened in Hanoi with the participation of nearly 1,500 domestic hematology experts and international scientists.
According to Associate Professor Nguyen Ha Thanh, Director of the Central Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, hematology and blood transfusion scientists and medical workers gathered at the conference to share experiences, scientific research results, and update new techniques in diagnosing and treating blood diseases and ensuring a safe and timely blood supply nationwide.
In particular, experts will focus on the latest techniques that countries in the world are developing such as hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, mesenchymal stem cell transplantation, cell therapy, and targeted therapy to improve the quality of patients' lives.
Sharing more about blood cancer treatment methods, Dr. Bach Quoc Khanh, former director of the Central Institute of Hematology, said that blood cancer is one of the most complex and dangerous cancers. Doctors can just use chemotherapy and allogeneic stem cell transplantation for treatment. The latest figures show that the 5-year survival rate for all subtypes of leukemia is only 20 percent with chemotherapy while with allogeneic stem cell transplantation, the 5-year survival rate for all subtypes of leukemia increases to 50 percent. Up to now, the Institute has performed 600 stem cell transplants, of which 2/3 are transplants from allogeneic stem cells from siblings, parents and umbilical cord blood.
However, the fact that stem cell transplantation is not a cure for blood cancer but is only a way to help patients overcome high-dose chemotherapy because stem cells do not kill cancer cells. Therefore, people are presently mainly looking for other treatment methods with many main effects and few side effects such as drugs killing malignant cells but not affecting healthy cells. Targeted drug treatment which the Institute has carried out on patients with blood cancer for many years produced good results.
In addition, cell therapy has very few side effects; plus, patients who were treated with this method have a 5-year survival rate of up to 70 percent-80 percent. Currently, the Institute is cooperating with experts from the US and developed countries to help Vietnam transfer therapeutic cell technology to blood cancer patients.
