Crohn's disease is a chronic, inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract. As an autoimmune disorder, treatment with high doses of chemotherapy followed by autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is promising for refractory Crohn's disease patients with no other therapeutic option and at imminent risk of further surgeries.

To evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of hematopoietic progenitor cell mobilization in a group of Crohn's disease patients preparing for autologous unselected hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in a single institution. This is the first study to evaluate mobilization in Crohn's disease.

Patients were selected according to criteria of the European Bone Marrow Transplant Society.

All patients mobilized with the mean number of hematopoietic progenitor cells obtained and infused being 16.17×106/CD34+/kg. Most (23/29) patients required only one leukapheresis session to reach the ideal number of cells. Grafting occurred around ten days after cell infusion. Complications and adverse events during the mobilization period were rare with only one patient presenting sepsis as a relevant event in the period. Most patients 20/29 (70%) had anemia from the beginning of the mobilization but only 11 (37.9%) received packed red blood cell transfusions.

Mobilization in patients with Crohn's disease is effective; almost all patients in this series were good mobilizers.

NCT 03000296.