We recently reported on the demographic characteristics, prevalence and incidence of oncohematological diseases in the Vale do Paraiba, State of Sao Paulo.(1) However, there are insufficient data to provide specific information on survival rates of patients with oncohematological diseases in this region. Against this background, the Grupo de Onco-Hematologia do Vale do Paraiba (GOHV) set out to assess the survival of patients with subtypes of lymphoid neoplasms and acute non-promyelocytic leukemia (AML). The GOHV consists of medical oncohematological representatives of the following services: Hospital Frei Galvao of Guaratingueta, Hospital Regional de Vale do Paraiba located in the city of Taubate, Oncovida, Centro de Oncohematologia of Taubate, Hospital PIO XII in Sao Jose dos Campos and the Servico de Hematologia de Sao Jose dos Campos. The services of Hospital Frei Galvao, Hospital Regional de Vale do Paraiba and Hospital PIO XII in Sao Jose dos Campos are referral centers in the Regional Health Division XVII, composed of 39 municipalities in the Vale do Paraiba. Together, the services that comprise the GOHV attend all adult Brazilian National Health Service patients in the region as well as more than 90 percent of adult patients of other healthcare insurers. A retrospective study was carried out from January 2000 to December 2010 and a total of 682 over 19-year-old patients were enrolled. The diagnoses of lymphomas, multiple myeloma (MM) and AML were based on the criteria of the World Health Organization and the French-American-British classifications.(2,3) The subtypes of lymphoid neoplasms analyzed were diffuse large B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (DLBCL - n = 212; median age 59 years; range: 20-86), follicular lymphoma (FL - n = 112; median age 63 years; range: 47-85), Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL - n = 132; median age 32 years; range: 19-74) and multiple myeloma (MM - n = 129; median age 65 years; range: 38-94). Among the patients with AML (n = 97) the median age was 67 years (range: 19-84). Overall survival (OS) was defined as the time interval from the date of diagnosis to death from any cause or to the last follow-up in censored patients. Survival analysis was carried out according to the Kaplan-Meier method. The median time of follow-up was 58 months. The median survival rates were undefined for DLBCL, FL and HL, 38 months for MM and four months for AML. The OS curves according to diagnosis are shown in Figure 1. The estimated 5-year OS obtained from the survival curves of the patients diagnosed with lymphoid neoplasms and AML were compared with the results of the European Cancer Registry based project on hematologic malignancies (HAEMACARE)(4) and the specialized registry of hematologic malignancies of Cote d'Or, France,(5) respectively. The HAEMACARE project enrolled 184, 166 patients diagnosed with lymphoid neoplasms between 1995 and 2002 in 48 European cancer registries and the French study reported twenty-five years (1980-2004) of data on 5086 patients with myeloid malignancies, including AML (Table 1). Figure 1 OS curves ( ) and 95% confidence interval ( ) according to diagnosis Table 1 Table 1 - Grupo de Onco-Hematologia do Vale do Paraiba (GOHV), European Cancer Registry based project on hematologic malignancies (HAEMACARE) and the specialized registry of malignancies of Cote d'Or,France 5-year overall survival of patients with subtypes ... Figure 1B Folicular lymphoma (n = 112) Figure 1C Multiple myeloma (n = 129) Figure 1D Hodgkin’s lymphoma (n = 132) Figure 1E Acute myeloid leukemia (n = 97) This study does not allow a critical comparative analysis because of the limited number of patients studied. Besides, it should be reinforced that comparisons of survival of patients require that individual neoplastic entities be grouped into clinical categories with similar prognoses. However, in general our data compare favorably to these reports. The possible reasons for this are based on the improvements in the quality of care which have been introduced in the Vale do Paraiba over the last decade, new treatment options such as rituximab, thalidomide and proteasome inhibitors and more intensive chemotherapy followed by autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (which has been used in this region since 2004) as well as the practice guidelines for the use of antimicrobial agents in neutropenic patients with cancer, hospital environmental precautions and allogeneic bone marrow transplant from related or unrelated donors probably should have led to a better survival rates for our patients. Finally, despite the limitations of our study, we suggest that the survival of patients with lymphoid and myeloid neoplasm subtypes achieved at services that comprise the GOHV represent what is expected according to the literature.