Peripheral Stem Cell Collection: From Leukocyte Growth Factor to Removal of Catheter

A wide variety of hematologic malignancies, autoimmune diseases, inborn errors of metabolism, and bone marrow failure syndromes maybe put into a remission or potentially cured by hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Depending on the underlying disorder, stem cells may be collected from the future transplant recipient themselves, an human leukocyte antigen (HLA) identical donor, a mismatched related or unrelated donor, or banked umbilical cord blood. Peripheral blood leukapheresis to collect stem cells from autologous or allogeneic donors is safe and well-tolerated. In most cases, the apheresis procedure is performed in an outpatient setting over 4-6 h a day for up to 4 days to achieve the stem cell dose needed for HSCT. Current research in stem cell mobilization and collection is focused on optimizing the numbers of stem cells collected by improving mobilization regimens, and increasing the efficiency of the apheresis collection to reduce the number of apheresis procedures needed to meet the stem cell dose requirement for HSCT. (C) 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.