Showing posts with label Cellularity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cellularity. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Camp notes: Celularity

On Dr. S’s handout I wrote this from her talk:



“Why do we do both BMB and BMA? A looks at individual cells—and we cannot estimate cellularity from the aspirate.” “Interpretation of cellularity needs to be made with caution. It depends on where you sample. “



For information on Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome check out Shwachman-Diamond America

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Bone Marrow Cellularity

I have loads of medical textbooks on my shelves. Some people buy clothes, I buy books! I have a wonderful book titled: Illustrated Pathology of the Bone Marrow This is what it has to say about the cellularity of the bone marrow:

“It is often easiest to evaluate a bone marrow specimen by comparing it to what would be expected in the normal bone marrow. The initial evaluation on low magnification includes the assessment of sample adequacy and marrow cellularity. The latter is usually based on the biopsy. Estimates of cellularity on aspirate material have been described but may be unreliable in variably cellular marrows. The normal cellularity varies with age and evaluation of cellularity must always be made in the context of the patient’s age. The marrow is approximately 100% cellular during the first three months of life, 80% cellular in children through the age 10 years; it then slowly declines in cellularity until age 30 years, when it remains about 50%cellular. The usually accepted range of cellularity in normal adults is 40-70%. The marrow cellularity declines again in elderly patients to about 30% at 70 years. Because of the variation in cellularity by age, the report should clearly indicate whether the stated cellularity in a given specimen is normocellular, hypocellular or hypercellular.”


I also found this information on a website. http://www.pathologyoutlines.com/bonemarrow.html

Age related changes in bone marrow

Cellularity averages 79% at ages 0-9 years vs. 50% at ages 30-69 vs. 29% at ages 70-79. With aging, hematopoietic tissue is replaced by fat. Deeper medullary areas are typically more cellular than subcortical areas.

B cell production declines with age (Curr Opin Immunol 2005;17:463), although the relative abundance of pro-B, pre-B, immature, naive, and mature B cells usually does not change appreciably between ages 24 and 88 years; occasional patients have exceptionally low numbers of lymphocyte precursors (Blood 2003;101:576)

Hypocellularity in elderly marrow may be due to increased apoptosis (Mech Ageing Dev 2000;117:57)

Bone Marrow Cellularity

I used to be the newsletter coordinator for SDSI. While doing their newsletter, we had an Ask the Doctor section. The folowing comes from the SDSI Summer 2000 newsletter:

“ASK THE DOCTOR

Q: Can you explain what the normal cellularity of bone marrow is at various ages and how cellularity is determined?

A: Bone marrow cellularity decreases with age, by approximately 10% per decade. Thus, the marrow of a newborn infant is practically 100% cellular and that of a 50year old is approximately 50% cellular. Meaning the space is occupied by fat, which increases with age. These percents are obtained from bone marrow biopsies, by examination under the microscope and very roughly estimating how much of the area in the microscope field has cells compared to fat. THEY ARE VERY ROUGH FIGURES!

Blanche Alter, MD “