Klin Onkol 1998; 11(2): 33-40.
Cytokine - mobilized peripheral blood stem cells are increasingly used as a promising alternative to bone marrow for allografting. Preliminary results seem to show several potential advantages of this approach, such as: 1. more donor -friendly and possibly safer stem cell collection. 2. the harvest of a significantly larger number of progenitor cells, allowing for graft engeneering, 3. faster hematopoietic engraftment, and 4. comparable rates of acute graft - versus - host disease. Although the superiority of this approach over bone marrow allografting has not yet been clearly demonstrated in a randomized trial, experience is accumulating rapidly, and major transplant centers worldwide seem to have endorsed this procedure. The acceptance of peripheral blood as the primary source of stem cells for allografting is likely to have a profound impact in areas such as graft - versus - tumor effect, unrelated donor registries, and transplants. In the following review, currently available information on blood stem cell harvesting and allografting is preserted.
