[Greg H]

Hey FB!

Boy-o, boy-o, you really hit the jackpot (not) with this BMB.

Given that the aspirate is the blood they pullout of your marrow, the only way it could be too dilute to be useful is if someone messed up the sample in the procedure room or the lab, I think.

So you got jipped on both parts of the biopsy. The pathologist doesn't seem to hedge his/her bets on the 30% cellularity, so it looks like you have too few blood making cells for some reason -- AA, MDS, vitamin deficiency, there are lots of possibilities.

I take it there was no mention of dysplasia or dysplastic forms in the report. That would be important, since finding broken blood cell precursors tends toward a diagnosis of MDS.

The problems with the samples shouldn't affect the cytogenetics, since they just pull out 20 or so cells to do that. That will at least tell you whether you have something chromosomal going on.

During the BMBs that I have had, they always do a finger stick after the procedure and make a bunch of slides. It's always been my impression that this is the blood they use to make the peripheral blood comparisons -- not a CBC from another date.

I'm betting you're not going to get a diagnosis without enduring another BMB.

Take care!

Greg