Hepatic venocclusive disease(VOD) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in patients undergoing autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT). We therefore analysed 180 patients with AML (33) or lymphoma (HD 100, NHL 47) undergoing ABMT over 6.5 years for VOD using McDonald's criteria. Twenty two of them developed VOD. Incidence was higher with regimen containing irradiation (16 percent versus 4 percent, P=0.05) for females(20 percent versus 7 percent, p=0.02) and patients autografted for NHL (17 percent versus 11 percent, p=0.04). Preexisting hepatic dysfunction (n=6) did not seem to increase the chance of VOD.

Cell viability and progenitor cell recoveries of hemopoietic cells have been measured following storage at 4C in a refrigerator. The mean end viability of normal bone marrow cells was 69.7 percent with a progenitor cell recovery of 61.0 percent on the 14th day of storage. Whereas marrow cells of multiple myeloma patients (who underwent autologous BMT) had a viability of 67.4 percent with a stem cell recovery of 60.2 percent on day 9 and for many leukemic state bone marrow samples the end viability was 60.5 percent on day 5 with a progenitor cell recovery of 59.5 percent Preferential cytolysis of the contaminating malignant cells in both multiple myeloma and leukemic state bone marrows could be the possible explanation for these differences.