Large-volume leukapheresis in pediatric patients: pre-apheresis peripheral blood CD34+ cell count predicts progenitor cell yield

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: In children it is very important to optimize PBPC harvesting and to reduce the number of leukaphereses per patient. The value of pre-apheresis peripheral blood CD34+ cell concentration as a predictor of PBPC yield was studied in 23 pediatric patients with hematologic and non-hematologic malignancies in order to optimize duration of PBPC collection. DESIGN AND METHODS: The patients underwent 25 stem-cell mobilization episodes with G-CSF alone and 40 large-volume leukapheresis procedures. Peripheral blood and harvested CD34+ cell concentrations were analyzed by means of flow cytometry. RESULTS: Using linear regression analysis, a highly significant correlation was found between the peripheral blood CD34+ cell count and the CD34+ cells/kg patient body weight collected on the apheresis day (r = 0.826, p = 0.0001). The results indicate that at least 1 x 10(6)/kg CD34+ cells can be harvested during one leukapheresis procedure in all patients if the pre-apheresis blood CD34+ cell count is > or = 30/microL and a CD34+ cell target of > or = 5 x 10(6)/kg is achieved in at least 80% of patients if this value is > or = 50 CD34+ cells/microL processing a median blood volume of 438.7 mL/kg (range, 207-560) over a median time of 232.5 minutes (range, 182-376). INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that the number of CD34+ cells harvested in a single large-volume leukapheresis can be predicted from the measurement of peripheral blood CD34+ cell concentration on the collection day.