A Practical Procedure for the Cryopreservation of Marrow Cells Intended for Autotransplantation

Abstract

A simple and practical method of unfractionated bone marrow processing and cryopreservation was studied. The date shows that RBCs can be rapidly sedimented by methylcellulose or sodium carboxymethyl starch within 15-45 min. The cells can be cryopreserved in a mixture consisting of 5% DMSO, 6% HES and 4% Albumin prepared in a Lactated Ringer solution which is widely used, and can be simply immersed into a -80 degrees C freezer and stored in liquid nitrogen until infusion. Recovery percentages of nucleated cell, cell viability and CFU-G were similar to those cryopreserved with the conventional method. Clinical toxicity was mild in 12 infused patients. Of them 8 patients had received high dose chemotherapy +/- TBI and their peripheral WBC recovery was rapid. The recovery of WBC or Platelet (PLT) in the study group was similar to that of the control group whose marrow cells were cryopreserved in 10% DMSO. Therefore, cells cryopreserved with this method can also accelerate the hematopoietic recovery in myeloablatively treated patients.

Pharmaceutical Development of a Lyophilised Dosage Form for the Investigational Anticancer Agent Imexon Using Dimethyl Sulfoxide as Solubilising and Stabilising Agent

“…DMSO has been used intravenously to administer drugs which displayed insufficient solubility in other solvent systems (in particular chemotherapeutic agents) in early clinical studies 32–34. Patients receiving autologous bone marrow transplantation to support high dose chemotherapy are also exposed to DMSO (up to approximately 50 mL of DMSO is thus administered35), which is used as protectant in the cryopreservation of the cells 36,37. A disadvantage of the administration of DMSO by any route is its garlic‐like odour on the breath following administration resulting from the metabolite dimethyl sulfide, which is also the precursor (extracted from lignin) in the manufacturing of DMSO 38…”