Malaysian Society of Haematology

This is the first announcement for the upcoming national meeting. The meeting will be held in Shangri-La Hotel, Kuala Lumpur on 10th to 12th April 2008. The theme is “innovative strategies towards improved outcomes”.

Organising Chairperson: Dr Chang Kian Meng
Secretary: Dr Gan Gin Gin
Treasurer: A/P Dr Leong Chooi Fun
Scientific Committee:
Professor S Fadhillah
Dr JV Sangkar
Dr Tan Sen Mui
Dr Lim Soo Min
Publicity: Dr Veera Sekaran

The topics will be on acute leukemias, chronic leukemias, myeloproliferative disorders, anaemia, iron homeostasis, stem cell therapies and transfusion medicine. There are also nurses and laboratory haematology symposium.

Abstract submission for poster and oral presentation will be opening soon.

Please watch this space.

Any query, please contact secretary@haematology.org.my

We up in HUSM has began HLA tissue typing services.  This revelation is in no way indicative of request for samples.  Due to budget constrain we have limited ourselves for the beginning to doing 6/6 low resolution screening.  On top of that we are no longer allowed to send samples to IMR for tissue typing as it will doubled our cost.  We are charged RM450 per samples by IMR.

Since we are mainly screening for matched related allo-transplant, we have confined ourselves to A, B and DR antigen sibling and parents screenings provided the parents do not show antigen homozygocyties.  Based on the experienced in the 11th BMT course at Spain this year and the EBMT handbook; for a sibling related allo-transplant no further HLA workup is required if we are able to identify 6/6 antigen match.    Obviously a higher resolution match is indicated if the parents show homozygocity and in unrelated circumstances.
As we are not doing allogeneic stem cell transplantation, all 6/6 matched siblings will be handed over to other centers who are doing the procedure.  In order not to delay and repeat the HLA study, I will like to know your feedback, whether this concept is acceptable in your practice.  Your feedback is important as we may have to modify our practice based on your perception.

Thanks.

Abu Dzarr