Selection of Stem Cell Source

Selection of stem cell source is an important consideration for any physician planning an allogeneic haematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) and has evolved considerably since bone marrow (BM) was used as the stem cell source in the first successful allogeneic HCT in 1968 (Gatti et al. 1968). BM remained the only source of stem cells for the two decades that followed until experimental work demonstrating that peripheral blood (PB) stem cells can be enriched by pre-treatment with certain chemotherapy agents and haematopoietic growth factors (Richman et al. 1976; Socinski et al. 1988; Duhrsen et al. 1988) resulted in the first peripheral blood stem cell transplant in 1986 (Korbling and Freireich 2011). Alongside this, the recognition of cord blood (CB) as a rich source of stem cells (Prindull et al. 1978) led to the successful use of cord blood as a third stem cell source in allogeneic HCT in the late 80s (Gluckman et al. 1989).