title: Bone Marrow Involvement in Neuroblastoma: A Study of Hemato-morphological Features.
abstract: Bone marrow involvement in neuroblastoma indicates advanced stage of disease. The recent use of autologous bone marrow "rescue", has provided an additional important reason for accurate assessment of bone marrow status in newly diagnosed patients. In this study, we analyzed 44 cases of neuroblastoma for bone marrow infiltration status and their hematological parameters. Eighty-eight bone marrow aspirate and trephine touch imprint smears and 44 trephine biopsy sections were examined in these 44 patients. Of these, 24 cases (54.5 %) showed marrow infiltration. Leucopenia and bicytopenia were significantly (p < 0.05) associated with marrow infiltration. Both bone marrow aspirate and biopsy were positive for infiltration in 16 out of 24 positive cases. Only aspirate smears were positive in 4 and only trephine biopsy in another 4 cases. The pattern of infiltration consisted of rosette formation in 40.7 % cases on aspirate smears and 22.2 % cases in trephine biopsies. Remaining cases showed diffuse and interstitial presence of tumor cells and cases positive only on trephine biopsy, showed marked stromal reaction. Bilateral trephine biopsies combined with aspirate smears picked up all positive cases compared to when they were assessed alone.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: Pulkit
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rastogi
authors.affiliation: Department of Hematology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: Shano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Naseem
authors.affiliation: Department of Hematology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: Neelam
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Varma
authors.affiliation: Department of Hematology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: Reena
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Das
authors.affiliation: Department of Hematology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: Jasmina
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ahluwalia
authors.affiliation: Department of Hematology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: Man Updesh Singh
authors.initials: MU
authors.lastname: Sachdeva
authors.affiliation: Department of Hematology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: Prashant
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.affiliation: Department of Hematology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: Narender
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: Ram Kumar
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Marwaha
keywords: Bone marrow; Children; Cytopenia; Infiltration; Neuroblastoma