The Comparison of Standard and Salvage Chemotherapy Regimens Regarding to CD34(+) Peripheric Stem Cell Harvesting Success

Although regimens of harvesting peripheric stem cell vary from one center to another, the most common ones are chemotherapy plus growth factor or growth factor alone. We aimed to determine which variables of harvesting peripheral stem cells are effective on the number of harvested CD34+ cells and successfull mobilisation defined as "the collection of >2.0 x 106 CD34+ cells/kg b.w. with a maximum of three leukaphereres". From August 2008 to January 2011, the documents of 56 patients included in the autolo- gous peripheral stem cell harvesting program were retrieved retrospectively. Regarding harvesting regimens, 28 patients (50.0%) we- re administered filgrastim 10 µg/kg/day (filgrastim group), 18 patients (32.1%) were administered a standard regime with ifosphami- de + etoposide + epirubicin + filgrastim 5 µg/kg/day or cyclophosphamide + etoposide + filgrastim 5 µg/kg/day (standard group), and 10 patients (17.9%) were administered a salvage regime + filgrastim 5 µg/kg/day (salvage group). Rituximab was added if the disease was CD20 positive. The median number of CD34+ cells and the number of inadequate collection did not differ between the- se 3 groups. Transplantation before mobilization was found to have a negative effect on the harvesting success. The transplantated patients had a lower number of harvested CD34+ cells than the patients without transplantation history. But no clear relationship was seen between harvest success and the diagnosis of the patients, pretransplant response, radiotherapy history before mobiliza- tion, or mobilization with a standard regimen. Finally, the number of standard CT cycles before mobilization were found to have a borderline negative effect on the harvested CD34+ cells.