title: Erythroid burst-forming units (BFU-E) predict hematopoietic recovery after peripheral blood progenitor cell transplantation in patients with advanced breast cancer.
abstract: In 29 consecutive heavily pretreated stage IV breast cancer patients, we analyzed patient factors and in vitro characteristics of peripheral blood progenitor cell (PBPC) collections that might correlate with the speed of hematopoietic recovery after autologous transplantation. PBPC collections were assessed for total number of mononuclear cells infused/patient weight in kg and hematopoietic progenitor cell content using in vitro colony-forming assays. In these patients, who received PBPC as the sole hematopoietic support after myeloablative chemotherapy, the number of erythroid burst-forming units (BFU-E) infused correlated significantly with both time to neutrophil (P = 0.008) and platelet (P = 0.0001) recovery and was a better predictor of hematopoietic recovery than number of CFU-GM administered. By day 75 after transplantation, six patients with poor BFU-E yields failed to engraft platelets. Our data suggest that the number of BFU-E infused correlate with time to hematopoietic engraftment and may predict failure of platelet engraftment in heavily pre-treated patients.
authors.affiliation: Dept of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University/Ireland Cancer Center, Cleveland, OH, USA.
authors.forename: B W
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Cooper
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Mackay
authors.forename: S L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Gerson
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Lazarus
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D015672:Erythroid Precursor Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006410:Hematopoiesis; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged