Transportation of cellular therapy products: report of a survey by the cellular therapies team of the Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion (BEST) collaborative

Background and Objectives Most cell therapy products (CTP) are infused or processed shortly after collection but in some cases this may be delayed for up to 48 h. A number of variables such as temperature and cell concentration are of critical importance for the integrity of CTP during this time. Materials and Methods We conducted a survey of cellular therapy laboratories to ascertain current practices for CTP transportation. Results There were 194 respondents of whom 90% shipped or received CTP – 84% allogeneic, 71% autologous and 62% therapeutic cells. Processing facilities shipped or received the following products – hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPC), Marrow 73%; HPC, Apheresis 90%; HPC, Cord Blood 54% and others 14%. Other CTP included donor lymphocytes, mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), natural killer cells, buffy coat neutrophils and virus‐specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL). More than 70% of respondents believed that it was acceptable for CTP to be held for up to 2 h without checking the temperature or cell density and a similar proportion agreed that putting products in containers to control parameters such as temperature within this time period was unnecessary. The majority of centres shipped or received between 1 and 10 CTP annually and 66% received products taking more than 2 h to ship. Of these, 82% specified the conditions for temperature in transit whilst 57% monitored temperature in transit and 74% of these used a data logger. The temperature range most commonly specified was 18–24°C. The majority of processing facilities did not request an adjustment to the cell density even for products taking more than 2 h to reach their facility. More than 90% of respondents tested HPC for CD34 + cells, viability and sterility; 40–48% performed colony‐forming unit–granulocyte macrophage (CFU–GM) analysis. Only viability was thought by > 50% of respondents to be impacted by temperature, cell density and other parameters. Conclusion Understanding current practice will help in the design of future studies for CTP storage and transportation.