Frozen vs. nonfrozen bone marrow for autologous transplantation in lymphomas: a report from the Spanish GEL/TAMO Cooperative Group.

To investigate the impact of frozen and non-frozen bone marrow on engraftment kinetics and disease outcome, 94 patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) autografted with frozen marrow (F group) were retrospectively compared with 38 who received marrow stored at 4 degrees C or 10 degrees C (NF group). The major end points of this study were time to hematopoietic recovery and early toxicity; disease response, disease-free survival (DFS), and relapse rate were also analyzed. Upon comparison of the NF and F groups, no significant differences were found in the period of time required to achieve a granulocyte count higher than 0.5 x 10(9)/l (20 and 22 days, respectively, p = 0.47) or a platelet count higher than 20 x 10(9)/l (28 and 27 days, respectively, p = 0.54). In addition, both groups behaved similarly in respect to toxic death (NF group 13%, F group 22%, p = 0.36), response rate (complete remission rate 78% in both groups), DFS (NF group 48%, F group 49%, p = 0.66), and relapse rate (NF group 30, F group 19%, p = 0.37). This study confirms that nonfrozen bone marrow is useful to support patients with NHL treated with myeloablative therapies.