Cancer diagnoses profile of bone marrow specimens from November 2012 to December 2015 in a tertiary academic setting

This study aimed to examine the number and type of cancer diagnoses made based on bone marrow aspirates (BMA) using morphology and/or histology, over a three year period. All the data collected (2012-2015) was obtained using the Trak-Care laboratory information system (LIS) of the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS). Data was categorised into four categories including acute leukaemias (ALs), chronic leukaemias (CLs), Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL), Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) and a miscellaneous group. The laboratory test most frequently used to make diagnoses was bone marrow aspiration (BMA) morphology (199), followed by flow cytometry (138), histology (113), fluorescent in situ hybridisation (FISH) (54) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (9). In total, the top three conditions diagnosed were acute myeloid leukaemias (AMLs), chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) and B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (B-ALL). There was good agreement between the diagnoses made by BMA morphology, BMT histology and flow cytometry. Results showed that BMA morphology was the most popular diagnostic test used and that this test had excellent agreement with BMT histology and flow cytometry diagnoses. The most frequently diagnosed conditions were the AMLs.