Tissue, stem cells, and bone marrow

I am not a BB tech like most of you, so I can use your help on a few things: 1. How does the hematocrit of peripheral blood compare with the hematocrit of aspirated bone marrow? 2. Same question as above, but for Ca2+ instead of hematocrit. 3. I know that glass tubes will trigger the contact activation coagulation cascade because of the anionic surface. How about plastic? If a quantity of bone marrow is aspirated into a typical plastic syringe to be almost immediately transferred into a collection bag containing an effective quantity of an anti-coagulant, do you need to pre-coat the syringe with a bit of anti-coagulant? I say "almost" immediately because the hematol…

Does anyone have a method of cleaning the stem cell bag specimen to get free red cells for typing? Most of the time we can get an ABO type but we have had a least two occasions where we can't get the bag specimen to type correctly with RH antisera. We can't get enough cells to type correctly with Anti-D. The original pherpheral blood sample types as D Pos.

We are looking into setting a wider temperature tolerance range for the QC of our liquid nitrogen temperature measuring devices. We use a couple of different types of devices, some of our models utilize probes that connect to a thermometer or a datalogging device, and in these types, I understand the tolerance of the device and of the attached probes compound; one has to be added to the other to get the true acceptable tolerance. We use the liquid phase of Liquid Nitrogen to create a stable environment at -196 C. We frequently struggle to meet +/- 2 degrees Celsius, much less the +/- 1 degree tolerance used for the higher temps. Is anyone out there using a temperature tol…

HI: Iam Establishing A Stem Cell Lab in P.R. . i WENT TO TRAINING BUT ONLY FOR 3 WEEKS. I have a list of reagents but i forgot for what is the ACD. i ALSO WANT TO KNOW HOW YOU PREPARE THE CRYPROTECTANT FOR THE HPC Products . I know you can use HSA, DMSO AND Plasmalyte tp prepare it but I want to know how, you know , what i add first etc. I also know the quantities but I need the procedure. thamk you ADA

Hi, I was wondering if anyone that works in a cellular therapy laboratory does any follow-up work up on the recipient to an adverse reaction to a HPC product? We currently do not do any adverse reaction work-ups nor does the transfusion service for stem cell products. Just curious if anyone else does. Thanks for your help!

We currently do skin grafts with AlloSource. We have a surgeon that wants to bank the left over skin. According to the package insert the skin is only good for 24 hours once thawed. However, he says at the other hospital he does surgery's for they allow him to keep them 7-10 days in a special solution. My question is what is the liability of not following package insert? Any comment will help

Our transplant center called and they have a new required change where Type "B" recipients must have and Anti-A IGG titer performed before the recipient can get an A2 or A2B donor's kidney. They sent me a copy of a procedure that they had gotten from another facility. That procedure treats the serum with DTT but then the rest of the procedure is on their automated analyzer. We currently do not a procedure for titers that treat the serum with DTT and then goes to 37C we only do RT isohemagglutinin titers. Does anyone have a Anti-A IGG procedure with treatment with DTT that they would be willing to share or any other recommends for us to help them meet this change?

Has anyone had experience of testing patients being treated with anti-CD38?

I have looked through the FACT and AABB standards and the Circular of information for HPC, but I can't find a requirement for performing an antibody screen / antibody identification for stem cell products. Is one required?

It's called T.C.S. and apparently it's quite revolutionary! What kind of organizations would benefit from such software? Based on the internal info that I have, the company selling this software has already scored projects with big centers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, South East Asia and Canada. The software at a glance: T.C.S.: A MODULAR SOFTWARE FROM COLLECTION TO TRANSPLANTATION - Donor Management - Product Management - Document Management - Donor / Recipient Link - Mother / Baby link - Processing / Transformation Management - Laboratory tests / Results - HLA - Sample and Tissue Archiving - Recipient Management - Medical Release - Labeling - Inventory Management - Import of…

Hey everybody, I am trying to gather some data to see what process volume facilities use during and HPC,Apheresis collection. I have read everything from 12L-20L or 200 mL per kilogram. We are looking at a new volume due to the new machine they would like to start collecting our products on. We are looking at using an Optia. Any input would be great!

pls tell me how to join the Asian Cord Blood Bank Consortium?

For those of you collecting HPC's using the Spectra AutoPBSC program, what do you have your harvest and chase volumes set at? We collect autologous HPC's only. After years of doing collections using the MNC program with operator control we went to the Auto PBSC several months ago. As expected, we saw the counts in our collections decrease. For our last patient we set the harvest volume at 5 ml and the chase volume at 6 ml. That seemed to make an improvemnt. Other than cryopreserving, we do not manipulate the HPC's post collection and again, our collections are autologous only. Does anyone with Auto PBSC experience have suggestions on which direction we should go in, volum…

We store autologous bone flaps at our hospital in blood bank in a -70 tissue freezer. Yesterday an auto bone flap was sent to surgery to be reimplanted. After the surgeon implanted the bone flap, the patient began having active intractible seizures. The surgeon removed the bone flap and it was returned to the blood bank. The bone flap was placed back into the -70 tissue freezer. The bone flap was cultured per our hospital procedure both when initially collected and after being removed this time. We have never had an auto bone flap that has been thawed returned to be refrozen. We would appreciate anyones thoughts on this situation.

We are expanding services at our hospital to include neurosurgery. So the surgery department will be wanting to store the bone flaps from the decompression surgeries. I am trying to find some reference materials or a kind person that may be willing to share their process. Thank you!!

Hi, Does anyone out there have experience (good or bad) with the BD Fortessa Flowcytometer? Have you validated CD34 on it? Thanks in advance for your response. Sarah

I have been transplanted from Transfusion QA to Surgical Services. Every day I find out about products derived from non human/ non cellular. We only thought about human tissues to humans but at AABB in Montreal at Assessor training, I learned that all biological products regardless of source should be assessed it the Medical Director was indicated is "tissue oversight". Our Transfusion Committee has a Tissue Focus group and the chair of the Transfusion Committee is the Transfusion Medicine Service Medical Director. We though we were on top of things but this woke us up. The first wake up call was qualification of suppliers documentation. The sales representatives t…

We have a patient who has undergone a BM transplant (patient originally group O, now been given BM from an A donor). His group is coming up mixed field but this is because we are still transfusing him with O blood every 7 days or so. My question is how can we tell when he has completely transformed to his new blood group (A) when he keeps having O blood? We would like to give him his new group but not sure what the next step shoud be?

Who is responsible for managing transplantable tissues at your facility? With newer regulations in place, and more expected, some are moving this all to the blood bank. If this is happening, how will (are) you managing: Trace/Track-ability requirementsVendor qualificationsInventory - storage location and dateRecalls / patient notificationsWhat problems are/will you have in the BB?

I understand that cardiovascular allografts must be ABO compatible with the recipient. Does this mean ABO identical? or minor side incompatibility OK? What do others consider a current sample?

What is the CD34 count in the total aulogous PBSC collects that is sufficient for an adult? For a Pediatric patient? Thanks Liz

We seem to be doing abyssmal with our CFU assays on proficiency surveys. Our assays are okay with 'live' products and correlate well with engraftment. But we are not comparing well with our peers on surveys - we've actually tried 2 different vendors for these. Can anyone share what they do for CFU assays for surveys - do you wash the cells pre-plating? What concentration are you using? Or can someone share their procedure for CFUs? Many thanks!

Hi all, I am new to this list. Please forgive me if this post is redundant. I looked in the "reviews" section and I did not see much in the way of cellular therapy computer software. Would any of you be willing to share your thoughts on the following products - Stem Lab, EMMES, EdgeCell, or Core Informatics? We are a stand alone facility without an LIS so no Meidware or Meditech, etc. Likes or dislikes? Interfaces with lab instruments and outside testing vendors? Reports? Paperless system? ISBT friendly? Tracking? Supply Inventory? Flexibility and adaptability? Are there other products I am missing? I feel the system must include donor history and follow up, product hist…

Sorry deleted post.

We are considering buying a new Forma Cryomed controlled Rate Freezer Model 7452/7453 (same model but different voltage for US and Australia). My question is to Cryomed 7452/7453 users, how long have you had this freezer and are you satisfied with it. Any major equipment failures?