Lasky L and Warkentin P,eds. Marrow and Stem Cell Processing for Transplantation Bethesda. MD: American Association of Blood Banks, 1995
The ability to deliver supralethal chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy with an autologous bone marrow transplant (BMT) requires the ability to successfully harvest and store hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. While hematopoietic stem cells can be kept for short periods at 4 C, the majority of transplants performed in the United States are done with stem cells that have been cryopreserved and stored at either -80 C in a mechanical freezer or at liquid nitrogen temperatures. While many advances have occurred in the selection of appropriate patients and the treatment of hematologic malignancies and solid tumors with autologous BMT, little has changed since the early cryopreservation studies of the 1950s and 1960s. These methods are effective, yet with the explosion of centers performing autologous BMT, care must be taken to ensure that methods developed in cryopreservation research facilities are quality controlled. This is particularly important, since there is still no Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved method for cell cryopreservation. This brief review discusses cryopreservation basics, and compares and contrasts the two major cryopreservation methods currently in use in the United States.