COVID-19 and the Impact of Cryopreservation on Hematopoietic Cell Grafts

In this episode of The Onco’Zine Brief Peter Hofland talks with Stephen Spellman.

Stephen Spellman is Vice President and Senior Scientific Director at Be The Match and the Center for International Blood & Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR).

Hofland and Spellman talk about the outcomes of a study published in Blood Advances, the journal of the American Society of Hematology. [1] The article discusses the impact of cryopreservation of hematopoietic cell grafts on overall survival (OS) and other outcomes within 1 year after hematopoietic cell transplantation.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic the National Marrow Donor Program as together with other national and international donor registries mandated the cryopreservation of hematopoietic cell grafts during the first 6 months of the pandemic because of patient and donor safety concerns. The reason was that during the early days of the pandemic, delivery of donor products after patient conditioning could not be guaranteed. This was, in part, caused by logistical complexities including travel bans, flight delays and cancellations, rerouting of couriers – as well as closed border crossings… In addition, donors were at risk of being infected with the SARS CoV-2 Virus, the virus that causes COVID-19, which, in turn, resulted in last-minute cancellations of graft collection.

To solve the pandemic-related logistical problems, the authors of the study conclude that cryopreservation should be considered a method to eliminate the potential risks with the use of fresh donor graft products or when fresh grafts are not available.

But what was the impact of cryopreservation on patients receiving hematopoietic cell transplantation compared to the effects among patients receiving fresh donor products? Was there a difference in overall survival, disease free survival, or disease recurrence? Was there a risk in Graft vs Host Disease?

In this episode of The Onco’Zine Brief Hofland and Spellman talk about this and more.

Reference
[1] Devine SM, Bo-Subait S, Kuxhausen M, Spellman SR, Bupp C, Ahn KW, Stefanski HE, Auletta JJ, Logan BR, Shaw BE. Clinical impact of cryopreservation of allogeneic hematopoietic cell grafts during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Blood Adv. 2023 Oct 10;7(19):5982-5993. doi: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2023009786. PMID: 37036959; PMCID: PMC10580174. [Article][Pubmed]

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