First Global Blood & Marrow Transplant [GlobalBMT] Conference in Kathmandu with experiences from Nepal, India, Singapore and Sri Lanka

First GlobalBMT Conference organized on November 5, 2017 in Kathmandu fulfilled one of the educational goals of the active collaboration between the University of Illinois at Chicago Center for Global Health and Civil Service Hospital in Kathmandu (Nepal).This collaboration, that over the years has facilitated the establishment of the first BMT Center in Nepal, is aimed at improving the care of hematologic patients in this country, building capacity in BMT, as well as collaborating on projects related to cost-effectiveness and affordability of BMT in low-middle-income countries (LMICs).To this purpose, the main objective of this first GlobalBMT Conference was to gather physicians from BMT centers in South-East Asia to discuss relevant topics in BMT from the perspective of this part of the world and to find common views on standard practices and specific needs.The speakers who accepted the invitation to participate in this conference were BMT physicians from Vellore, Bengaluru and New Delhi (India), Singapore (Singapore), Colombo (Sri Lanka), Kathmandu (Nepal) and Chicago (USA).The conference was organized to have presentations focused on the challenges of BMT in LMIC and to generate discussion.Eight lectures were presented and addressed: management of infectious complications in BMT, challenges of graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) in LMIC, challenges in establishing a BMT center in a LMIC, use of post-transplant high dose cyclophosphamide in BMT, methods and quality of stem cell collection and cryopreservation, role of autologous BMT in Non-Hodgkin' s lymphoma, cost-effectiveness and outcome of BMT vs new therapies in multiple myeloma, challenges of pediatric BMT.After the presentations on these general transplant topics, specific experiences and common practices were discussed as key elements in the management of BMT in LMICs.The following represent shared views of the participants on relevant topics that characterize BMT in LMICs.