Fresh vs. frozen allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell grafts: A successful timely option

Abstract

Cryopreservation of grafts has been established in autologous and cord blood transplantation, yet there is little experience regarding the effect of cryopreservation with sibling and unrelated grafts. We evaluated the effect of cryopreservation of grafts on allogeneic transplant outcomes using related, unrelated and haploidentical donors, including 958 patients, age 18-74 years (median 55) and using PBSC for various hematologic malignancies. Fresh grafts were received by 648 (68%) patients, 310 (32%) received cryopreserved. There was no difference between fresh vs cryopreserved grafts for neutrophil engraftment (P =.09), platelet engraftment (P =.11), graft failure (5.6% vs 6.8%, P =.46) and grade II-IV acute graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) (P =.71), moderate/severe chronic GVHD was observed in 176 (27%) vs 123 (40%) patients, respectively (P