[A ten year university cooperation program in pediatric surgery in Saigon, Vietnam. Lessons and perspectives]

A university cooperation in the field of the medico-surgical management of pediatric digestive pathology was set up since 1999 at Children's Hospital no 2 in Saigon, Vietnam. Supported by the Belgian Commission for University Development (CUD), this program focused on postgraduate teaching and research regarding the early detection of neonatal malformations. Replying to a request of Vietnamese health authorities, a pediatric liver transplant program with parental living donors was also launched. Six children were successfully transplanted since 2005, an achievement which required the elaboration of new standards of clinical care in this eight hundred beds pediatric hospital. The direct and indirect improvements promoted through this program should contribute to enhance the overall medico-surgical management of children in this major Southern institution.