Bone Marrow-Derived Cellular Therapies in Orthopaedics: Part II: Recommendations for Reporting the Quality of Bone Marrow-Derived Cell Populations.

Abstract

* Adoption and adherence to standardized reporting will advance the field and accelerate the rational development and objective comparison of new cell-based therapy options.* Quality reporting related to the attributes of an original starting sample require measurement of cellular composition as well as colony-forming unit assays to assess the concentration, prevalence, and biological potential of progenitors in a given sample. A comparison of processed and unprocessed bone marrow samples can be used to measure the yield and relative increase in concentration, prevalence, and change in biological potential associated with any processing methods. However, traditional manual methods for colony counting have unacceptable repeatability and reproducibility. Whenever possible, we encourage using automated methods for colony-forming unit assays as outlined in the recent ASTM International Standard.* The concentration and prevalence of connective tissue progenitors and other stem and progenitor populations represent key metrics of the biological potential of a given bone marrow sample.* This instructional review provides references for best practices in bone marrow aspiration and suggests standards for reporting on the quality of bone marrow aspiration samples and the efficacy of processing methods that may be considered to improve the performance of bone marrow aspiration-derived cells in either preclinical or clinical cell therapy applications.