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Objective: Two hypotheses were tested: (1) In a sample of adult men, past experience of child abuse (sexual, physical, or emotional) will be related to higher levels of reported alienation from religion and God as shown in lower rates of current religious behavior, higher frequency of spiritual "injury," and lower stability of religious behavior and experiences; (2) More "severe" forms of abuse will be associated with higher indicators of alienation., Method: Data were collected from 1,207 male veterans, 527 (43.7%) of whom reported being abused as a child. Each subject completed the Spiritual Issues Assessment, a large survey which includes data about: (1) KASL Religiosity Index; (2) The Spiritual Injury Scale; and (3) Religious items from the Westberg Personal Health Inventory., Results: A history of sexual abuse was related to significantly greater spiritual injury and lower stability of spiritual behaviors and experiences, but not to overall rate of current religious behavior. Surprisingly, abuse was related to increased frequency of prayer and of "spiritual experience." Multivariate analyses indicate that the effect size is relatively small and the type of abuse was less important than the presence of any form of abuse., Conclusions: The findings suggest that the impact of childhood abuse is more complex than initially hypothesized. While abuse seems to be related to continuing spiritual injury and distress, it is also related to higher levels of some spiritual activities and experiences which are usually associated with positive spirituality.

Two hundred and thirty normal human sera have been tested for colony stimulating factor (CSF) under carefully controlled conditions using human bone marrow and the semi-solid agar-gel technique. It has been shown that CSF can be detected in most sera when incorporated into underlayers to remove potential inhibitors. The effect of storage temperature on serum CSF has been determined. Storage at 4 degrees, --15 degrees, and --66 degrees for up to 80 days resulted in only a mild decrease in CSF levels. After 240 days of storage, CSF values fell to 50% of that found before storage. Repeated freeze-thawing of serum has not been shown to decrease CSF levels when done in Pyrex glassware. These studies will serve as a baseline for those wishing to study human serum CSA in hematopoietic disorders.

A program of nonfrozen autologous bone marrow rescue was used to treat patients with refractory nonhematological neoplasms. In vitro storage of bone marrow cells and CFU-C suggests that storage at 4 degrees or 10 degrees for periods up to five days can be undertaken with only minor loss of CFU-C. However, since the loss occurred in a gradual fashion, shorter duration of storage would probably be better. Hematological recovery after high dose chemotherapy occurred faster in patients given more CFU-C and those with shortest duration of storage prior to reinfusion.

Studies have been carried out to determine the viability of leukemic and normal human bone marrow, cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen at -196 degrees C, using changes in total cell numbers and granulocyte colony forming ability in vitro. These studies have shown that there is considerable variability in the recovery of CFU-C from individual specimens. When the overall recovery, in all patients, is taken into account, there is a gradual decline in CFU-C numbers to about 60% after 24 months of freezing. CFU-C recovery is closely correlated with recovery of total cell numbers.