South African Stem Cell Transplant Society

SASCeTS is the South African Stem Cell Transplant Society. It is an organisation whose members consist of clinical haematologists and medical oncologists who participate in the transplantation of bone marrow / stem cells for the treatment of haematological diseases. Membership is also open to all interested medical practitioners and allied health care professionals.

History
Haematopoietic stem cell transplantation became a common procedure at university hospitals in Johannesburg and in Cape Town in the mid-1980’s. Although initially most transplants were autologous, there has been a substantial growth in allogeneic transplantation since the early 1990’s. Several transplant groups have been established in the private sector, further increasing the scope of this activity. Early in the new millennium, there was broad recognition that stem cell transplantation would continue expanding and our scientific community needed sustained support from all stakeholders. For this reason, in 2002, a group of professionals with active clinical programs held a symposium in Cape Town and invited Professor Roger Dansey from the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit as guest speaker.

Following this very successful meeting, a yearly symposium on stem cell transplantation has become a regular feature in the academic program of most South African haematologists and medical oncologists. Eminent scientists such as Professors John Goldman (London), Shimon Slavin (Jerusalem), Elianne Gluckman (Paris), Stephen Mackinnon (London), Jeff Szer (Melbourne) and Jean Luc Harousseau (Nantes) have been invited speakers at the yearly symposia. Professors Andrea Bacigalupo (Genoa) and John Barrett (NIH) attended the 2008 Symposium in Durban.

Meetings have been lively and very well attended considering the size of the transplant community.