Autologous Stem Cell Transplantations

High-dose treatments with autologous stem cell support have increasingly been used to improve the treatment results of a variety of haematological and nonhaematological malignancies. High-dose treatments cause severe bone marrow injury, which can effectively be rescued with infusion of a sufficient number of stem cells. Stem cells can be collected from bone marrow or by leukaphereses from blood. Before leukaphereses, stem cells - enumerated as CD34+ cells - must be mobilized from bone marrow to blood. The use of blood-derived stem cells for transplanting has certain advantages over bone marrow cells, one of the most important being the more rapid haemopoietic recovery from bone marrow ablation. As a result of the short cytopenic period, transplantation-related mortality is usually low. In this short review, the background of autotransplants, prerequisites for a successful blood cell transplant, clinical issues and future aspects are briefly discussed.