title: Single institution experience with mobilization, harvesting, and reinfusion of peripheral blood stem cells in children with a solid tumor or leukemia.
abstract: The aim of our single center pilot study was to evaluate the feasibility of peripheral blood stem cell autotransplantation (PBSCT) in a pediatric population. Only children with solid and hematological malignancies and poor prognosis who were without a HLA-identical bone marrow donor were included in this study. Mobilization of PBSC was done by treatment with myelosuppressive chemotherapy followed by recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (rhGM-CSF). Circulating progenitor cells were harvested by a total of 24 leukaphereses on an AS 104 cell separator in eight patients. Seven patients had undergone conditioning with high-dose chemotherapy with or without irradiation prior to PBSCT. All patients showed a rapid hematological recovery, although reconstitution of thrombopoiesis was incomplete in three children. We conclude that PBSCT is feasible in childhood and that it results in a rapid hematologic recovery.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Inselspital, University of Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Leibundgut
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hirt
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Lüthy
authors.forename: H P
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Wagner
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tobler
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007938:Leukemia / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D014182:Transplantation, Autologous