Pergamon PII: S0955-3886(96}00062-8 Transfus. Sci. Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 611-618, 1996 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0955-3886]96 $15.00 + 0.00 Technical and Safety Aspects of Blood and Marrow Transplantation Using G-CSF Mobilized Family Donors Janos G. Kadar, MD*§ Lubomir Arseniev, MDt Karen Schnitger* Ingrid S~dmeier* Marlies Zaki* Karen Battmert Roland Jacobs$ Helmut Diedricht Hubert Poliwoda, MDt Walter Stangel, MD* Hartmut Link, MDt • An allogeneic transplantation pro- gramme using immunoselected blood progenitor and bone marrow CD34+ cells has been established. Thirteen healthy HLA-matched, MLC negative sibling donors received two doses of 5 ~g kg -1 G-CSF (s.c. dailyl for 5 days. On days 4 and 5, large-volume mono- nuclear cell aphereses were performed (COBE Spectra ®) and on day 5 one unit of autologous blood was obtained. Mononuclear cells were pooled and cryopreserved after CD34+ cell-immu- noselection on day 5. Bone marrow (BM) of the same donors was procured under routine conditions 10-45 days later (median: 27days). The final graft con- sisted of blood CD34+ cells with either complete BM (n=5) or immunoselected BM CD34+ cells (n=8). The present paper describes the progenitor cell mobilization and apheresis protocol and analyzes the cell loss by BM and per- ipheral blood progenitor cell (PBPC) donation. Considerably larger amounts of mononuclear cells (CD45+), T-lym- phocytes (CD3+) and platelets were lost by the apheresis as compared to bone marrow without apparent immediate clinical consequences for the donors. Owing to cross-cellular contamination of the apheresis concentrate, blood pla- telet count (PC) significantly decreased {mean PC after the second apheresis 116x10 #L-l); furthermore on average 3.04x 10 l° CD3+ cells were removed by two apheresis sessions. This loss did not lead to long-term total lymphocyte count changes (2370 /~L-: versus 1889 ~tL -1) as observed during the long-term follow- up of 7/13 donors (mean 290 days). Subjectively, the PBPC collections were better accepted than BM donations in all but one family donor. © 1997 Else- vier Science Ltd. • "Blood Bank-Immunohematology-Transfusion Medi- cine, Medical School Hannover, Konstanty, Gutschowstr. 8, D-30625 Hannover, Germany. ~Department of Hematology and Oncology, Medical School Hannover, Hannover, Germany. **Department of Clinical Immunology, Medical School Hannover, Hannover, Germany. §Author for correspondence. 611 INTRODUCTION Accelerated hematopoietic recovery after allogeneic peripheral blood progenitor