Peripheral blood stem cell collection by apheresis at the Warsaw Institute of Hematology and Transfusion Medicine; a retrospective analysis

Abstract

Background: Apheresis is becoming an increasingly common method of peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) collection for transplantation purposes. The aim of this study was to analyse and evaluate the autologous PBSC apheresis collections at the Institute of Hematology and Transfusion Medicine in Warsaw, in the period 1997–2009.
Material and methods: A retrospective analysis of apheresis autologous PBSC collection protocols was performed. The analysis comprised the most frequent indications for procedure, some technical parameters as well as the quality of components including the number of CD34+ cells harvested, the number and viability of white blood cells (WBC) and mononuclear cells (MNC). All procedures within the study period were performed with either Fenwal CS 3000 Plus or Gambro Cobe Spectra (MNC and AutoPBSC apheresis protocols) cell separators, usually following chemotherapy and recombinant hematopoietic growth factor administration.
Results: Within the study period, a total of 790 apheresis procedures were performed in 234 patients with diagnosis of various hematological diseases such as: multiple myeloma, Hodgkin’s disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and acute myelogenous leukaemia. The number of procedures was observed to gradually increase in the sequential years. For individual patients, the total number of collected CD34+ cells ranged from 504.50 to 1493.96 × 10⁶ ; WBC and MNC viability > 90%. A mean CD34+ cell content per apheresis product was higher with Cobe Spectra MNC apheresis protocol (408.40 × 10⁶) than with both Cobe AutoPBSC and CS 3000 Plus (227.66 × 10⁶ and 207.44 × 10⁶ respectively).
Conclusions: According to all the apheresis protocols, the total number of harvested CD34+ cells far exceeded the transplantation minimum of 2 × 10⁶/kg per kilogram body weight. The increasing number of autologous PBSC donations observed in the sequential years reflects the evolutionary tendency in stem cell transplantation; from experimental therapy to well-established and commonly used treatment in a large variety of hematological diseases.
J. Transf. Med. 2011; 1: 23–31