SEPARATION OF UROLOGICAL TUMORAL CELLS WI TH A CELL SAVER AND A MEMBRANE-FILTER - A NEW TECHNIQUE FOR AUTOTRANSFUSION

Three long duration cancer cell lines were marked with radioactive met hionine S and mixed with a defined quantity of concentrated red cells. The mixture was separated according to a standardized method with cel l saver and two membrane filters. The marked cancer cells were counted with a liquid scintillation cell counter. After separation, only 0.02 7 % of the initial radioactivity was retrieved. If this result can be confirmed in a clinical setting, this technique would be highly promis ing for intraoperative automatic autotransfusions, especially in the f ield of tumour surgery. Despite the quality of conserved blood, hetero transfusion still involves considerable risk for the receiver.