Blood stem cells are collected from a donor in two ways: either through a bone marrow harvest (direct retrieval of the stem cells from the donor's hip bones, under general anaesthetic) or a peripheral blood stem cell collection (retrieval of stem cells using a blood cell separator machine, following a course of granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) injections). Both these methods of donation are common. Much research has explored which method of donation gives the best outcome to the patient, however there has not been a lot of research exploring these methods of donation from the donor's perspective. Such research is important if there is the possibility of long-term adverse events for the donor. For example, the long-term adverse events of G-CSF are not known, but there is the suggestion of a correlation between G-CSF and development of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). However, in many instances, donors are given a choice as to which method they would like to use to donate their stem cells. The aim of this review was to compare directly these two methods of blood stem cell donation from the donor's perspective, to understand the experiences of the donor. In this review, each donor was a sibling of the patient to whom they were donating blood stem cells.
Six trials (807 donors) were identified for this review. The review found that donors donating via a bone marrow harvest experienced more pain at the donation site (hip bone area) in the days following the donation, more days of restricted activity (e.g. sick days), more days in hospital and more side effects than donors donating through a peripheral blood stem cell harvest. In contrast, peripheral blood stem cell harvest donors experienced more pain prior to the donation of blood stem cells than bone marrow harvest donors. This pain was as a result of G-CSF administration. All donors had increased levels of tiredness and reduced levels of energy and anxiety following their donation.
There were three main limitations of this review. Firstly, in two trials more than 40% of the donors did not complete the trial. Secondly, there was no long-term follow up of the donors in any trial. Thirdly, the trials used different questionnaires to record the donors emotional experience of the donation procedure which made it difficult to compare the results of these measurements across the six trials. Further research, with larger numbers of included donors, would provide a greater understanding of the donation experience.