A retrospective study of the patterns of antimicrobial susceptibility and phage types of 111 Salmonella typhi strains isolated in 1996 from Vietnam was carried out. The strains were tested for susceptibility to chloramphenicol, ampicillin, tetracycline, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, nalidixic acid, ceftazidime, ceftriaxone and ciprofloxacin. Simultaneous resistance to chloramphenicol, ampicillin, tetracycline and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole were present in 84 strains (75.7%). Nalidixic acid resistance was only observed in 2 multidrug-resistant strains (1.8%). Twenty-one strains (18.9%) were completely susceptible to all drugs tested. All 111 strains were susceptible to ceftazidime, ceftriaxone and cipropfloxacin. The MIC values for chloramphenicol, ampicillin and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole corresponded with the results by disk diffusion method. On Vi phage-typing, 5 different phage types (28, A, D1, E1 and M1) were found in 12 strains (10.8%). However, most S. typhi strains were indistinguishable by this typing technique because they were degraded Vi-positive or untypeable Vi-positive strains (35.1% and 54.1%, respectively). There were no correlations between antimicrobial resistance patterns and phage types in the tested S. typhi strains in this study.