Blood, 15 June 2002, Vol. 99, No. 12, pp. 4632-4633
BRIEF REPORT
Breaking the rules? X-ray examination of hematopoietic stem cell
grafts at international airports
Andreas L. Petzer,
Hans-Georg Speth,
Elisabeth Hoflehner,
Johannes Clausen,
David Nachbaur,
Günther Gastl, and
Eberhard Gunsilius
From the Division of Haematology and Oncology,
University Hospital, Innsbruck, Austria.
Hematopoietic stem cell grafts from unrelated donors are commonly
transported by aircraft. They must not be subjected to x-rays during
security checks, which may cause inconvenient discussions between the
courier and the airport security staff. We exposed hematopoietic stem
cells from mobilized peripheral blood to a widely used x-ray
hand-luggage control system. Cell viability as well as growth in vitro
of mature progenitor cells (colony-forming cells), primitive progenitor
cells (long-term culture-initiating cells), and lymphocytes were not
altered even after 10 passages through the hand-luggage control system.
Thus, repeated exposure to the low radiation dose of
hand-luggage control systems (1.5 ± 0.6 µSv per exposure) seems to
be harmless for hematopoietic stem cells, which should simplify the
international transport of stem cell grafts.
