[The role of blood banks in bone marrow transplantation]

The transfusion service (TS) plays an important role in bone marrow transplantation (BMT). Many of the techniques and methods employed are also used in the daily work of a TS like tissue typing, apheresis techniques, handling of blood and its components under sterile conditions. In the pretransplantation phase the TS is responsible for the typing of recipient and presumptive donors, harvesting of autologous blood and selection of appropriate blood components. During BMT the TS can perform bone marrow harvesting, depletion of red cells in case of ABO-incompatibility and bone marrow manipulation when T-cell depletion or purging procedures are considered. Peripheral stem cell harvest by apheresis is also best performed by the TS experienced in such techniques. Storage of hematopoietic cells in liquid nitrogen and thawing are also techniques already used in most of the transfusion services. Post BMT, the support with blood components, irradiated and almost free of white cells to avoid TA-GVH and CMV-infection, is a major job of the TS. These facts demonstrate that a well organized transfusion service is a 'conditio sine qua non' for successful BMT.