Immunologically based methods for the elimination of tumor cells from autologous stem cell grafts.

There is currently renewed interest in the potential of tumor cells within autologous hematopoietic grafts to contribute to relapse of cancer post-transplant. This has prompted the development of a wide variety of techniques for the ex vivo removal or purging of malignant cells from bone marrow and peripheral blood progenitor cell grafts. Both negative selection, in which tumor cells are eliminated, and positive selection, in which hematopoietic stem cells are enriched, are under examination as purging modalities. This review describes the use of immunologically based methods for autologous graft engineering.