Bone marrow aspiration as the initial diagnostic tool in the diagnosis of leukemia - A case study

Generally patients suffering from leukemia complain of very vague symptoms of low grade fever for 2-3 months, weight loss, loss of appetite, fatigue, recurrent infections, petechiae in the body. Thus high index of suspicion and proper diagnosis is needed. The patients who attend tertiary care centre with above symptoms should be initially diagnosed by doing complete blood count, peripheral blood smear examination followed by bone marrow aspiration and its examination. It provides high quality visualization of cell morphology and enables differential count. A total of 1793 patients attended Department of Pathology in the tertiary care centre for bone marrow examination. Of this majority of cases were diagnosed with erythroid hyperplasia with megaloblastic reaction. 152 cases were diagnosed with leukemias. There were 66 cases of ALL, 46 cases of AML, 35 cases of CML, 3 cases of CLL and 2 cases of CEL. Few cases of Multiple Myeloma, plasma cell dyscrasias and immune thrombocytopenic purpura were diagnosed. In this study, we have analysed the incidence of different types of leukemia in different age groups and their presenting sign and symptoms.