Technique for human bone marrow harvest.
The usual technique of harvesting bone marrow for allogeneic or autologous transplantation involves passage of the marrow suspension through discs of stainless steel mesh of increasingly small diameter. We describe a sterile technique which is much less messy and produces a single cell suspension. Potter-Elvehjem homogenizers are used to break up the marrow particles. This procedure has been used successfully in 6 patients where allogeneic transplantation was performed and in 6 harvests of autologous marrow. Marrow cryopreserved in this way contains viable committed stem cells and is not subject to agglutination following subsequent thawing.
D001854:Bone Marrow Cells; D016026:Bone Marrow Transplantation; D002469:Cell Separation / Q000379:methods*; D002470:Cell Survival; D005615:Freezing; D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology; D006801:Humans