[Separation of urological tumor cells by means of a cell saver combined with a membrane filter. A new technique for autotransfusion?].

Three long duration cancer cell lines were marked with radioactive methionine S and mixed with a defined quantity of concentrated red cells. The mixture was separated according to a standardized method with cell saver and two membrane filters. The marked cancer cells were counted with a liquid scintillation cell counter. After separation, only 0.027% of the initial radioactivity was retrieved. If this result can be confirmed in a clinical setting, this technique would be highly promising for intraoperative automatic autotransfusions, especially in the field of tumour surgery. Despite the quality of conserved blood, heterotransfusion still involves considerable risk for the receiver.