Studies on normal bone marrow and Daudi Burkitt lymphoma cells were performed to determine the efficacy of selective, in vitro chemopurging with methylprednisolone (MP). We found that MP reduces the numher of lymphoma cells without significant damage to bone marrow cells. This information is important because we need to improve the existing in vitro purging regimens used to cleanse autologous marrows of metastatic disease before transplantation into cancer patients who have received high-dose chemotherapy. Normal human bone marrow (NBM) and Daudi lymphoma cells were trealed in parallel with various purging regimens. NBM death was evaluated using soft-agar culture, while Daudi cell death was evaluated using one-week liquid culture. A protocol of 2.0 mg/mL of MP for four hours demonstrated optimal selectivity. When treatment was followed by cryopreservation, a 1.7 log purge of Daudi cells was increased to 2.3 logs while preserving 36% of committed NBM precursors. We repeated these experiments on a simulated contaminated marrow to model closely the mixture of normal and malignant cells found in advanced, metastatic disease. We evaluated this mixed system by flow cytometric immunoanalysis using the two-color CD10/CD20 markers to detect residual, viable Daudi cells. Our initial results were reproducible in this mixed-cell system, further supporting the evidence for effective in vitro purging of bone marrow using MP
