title: Spontaneous megakaryocytic colony formation does not discriminate between essential thrombocythemia and polycythemia vera.
abstract: Laboratory detection of spontaneous growth of colony-forming unit-megacaryocytes (CFU-MK), allowing us to distinguish essential thrombocythemia (ET) from reactive thrombocytosis, is therefore useful for the diagnostic of this myeloproliferative disorder. Whether CFU-MK assays allow us to discriminate at least partly between ET and other myeloproliferative disorders such as polycythemia vera (PV) remains, however, to be established. To gain insights about this point, we have performed CFU-MK cultures from bone marrow cells of patients diagnosed with ET (n = 42) or PV (n = 50) using a standardized collagen-based serum-free method. Spontaneous growth of CFU-MK was similarly detected in both 40/42 patients with ET and 47/50 patients with PV. These data suggest clearly that the CFU-MK assay is useful to detect not only ET, but also PV, but fails to discriminate, even partly, between these two myeloproliferative disorders.
authors.affiliation: Service d'Hématologie Clinique, Centre Hospitalier et Universitaire, rue Henri Le Guilloux, 35033 Rennes, France.
authors.forename: Martine
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Escoffre-Barbe
authors.forename: Laurence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Amiot
authors.forename: Pascale
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Beaucournu
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jego
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Grulois
authors.forename: Bernard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Grosbois
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bernard
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fest
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lamy
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Fardel
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003114:Colony-Forming Units Assay; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008533:Megakaryocytes; D008875:Middle Aged; D011087:Polycythemia Vera / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D013920:Thrombocythemia, Essential / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology