|
Bone marrow biopsies gather only small samples of cells, especially with hypocellularity. As a result, an abnormality may show up in one biopsy result but not the next. It's still there, just not in the sample.
For the same reason, an abnormality that's present in the bone marrow may be missed entirely because it didn't show up in any sample. If defects are increasing they may say that the disease is "evolving" but it can also be that different genetic abnormalities just happen to show up in different samples.
I wish the facts were otherwise and defective cells could repair themselves. But since spontaneous remissions are rare that's unlikely to be the explanation.
|