Abstract
A principal limitation in the use of currently available cancer chemotherapy is bone marrow toxicity. Bone marrow transplants have been tried as a means of correcting marrow aplasia in animals and men. Immunologic incompatibility, however, has proved to be a limiting factor in the use of this technic. Furthermore, if transplantation is successfully performed, hemologous disease is likely to ensue. To avoid these difficulties, the author has introduced the repopulation of suppressed marrow with autologous marrow stored, i, e, the patient's own marrow. For this, frozen and stored in glycerin seems to be ideal. However, this procedure is too complex for routine use. For this purpose, therefore, the author has chosen the marrow stored at 4°C which is a simpler procedure.
In the matter of preliminary observations, the viability of human marrow after storage at 4°C was assessed in vitro, in this paper. For this purpose, two methods to assess the viability of marrow were used. One is the modified INK-method to assess the viability of the aspirated marrow after storage at 4°C, for determine the activity of total tissue dehydrogenase in vitro. The other is viable cell counting by Nigrosin staining with marrow-cell suspension.
Results are as follows: After storage at 4°C, sudden decrease of the viability of the marrow was observed, showing about 50% survival of normal, after 24 hours. The observations demonstrate that human marrow can be preserved satisfactory at 4°C for 24 hours.
