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Bone‐marrow examination in the staging of small‐cell anaplastic carcinoma of the lung with special reference to subtyping: An evaluation of 203 consecutive patients
Author(s) -
Hirsch Fred,
Hansen Heine H.,
Dombernowsky Per,
Hainau Bo
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.052
H-Index - 304
eISSN - 1097-0142
pISSN - 0008-543X
DOI - 10.1002/1097-0142(197706)39:6<2563::aid-cncr2820390638>3.0.co;2-i
Subject(s) - medicine , subtyping , anaplastic carcinoma , pathology , bone marrow , lung , carcinoma , oncology , radiology , computer science , programming language
Histologic examination of bone‐marrow from the posterior iliac crest was routinely done as a pretreatment staging procedure in 203 consecutive patients with small‐cell anaplastic carcinoma of the lung. Subtyping of the patients according to the WHO classification included 27.8% with “fusiform” cell type (WHO II,1), 28.3% with “polygonal” cell type (WHO II,2), 42.8% with “lymphocyte‐like” cell type (WHO II,3), and 1.1% with mixed types (WHO II,4). Bone‐marrow involvement was found in 17.2%. No significant difference was observed among the histological subtypes with regard to bone‐marrow involvement. A comparison of bone‐marrow biopsy and aspiration in patients investigated with both procedures showed that aspiration alone was diagnostic in nine of 24 (38%) positive patients as compared with two of 24 (8%) with biopsy alone, while in the remaining 13 patients (54%) both procedures were positive. Of the 35 patients with positive bone‐marrow examination, 77% had no other evidence of distant metastatic disease if liver metastases identified by peritoneoscopy and liver biopsy are excluded as a staging procedure. With the exception of thrombocytopenia which was observed in six patients, with bone‐marrow metastases, hematological findings were of little value in detecting bone‐marrow involvement.