Blue round cell tumors – Bone marrow metastasis

Abstract

Objective: Bone marrow involvement by solid tumor implicates advanced disease and bad prognosis.Bone marrow aspiration and biopsy , performed routinely for staging  for  small round cell tumors and  unexplained cytopenia in other solid tumors .It is important to rule out bone marrow involvement before planning for  any definitive ,curative treatment.Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective observational study of bone marrow involvement by , Small round cell tumors  / solid tumors and their  hematological manifestation, especially the neuroblastomas. Results: Evaluation of  Bone marrow evaluation during past 5 years , in  solid malignancies,revealed Out of 574, 240 were pediatric cases and 334 were adult cases. Bone marrow was involved in 65 patients. In children, bone marrow involvement was present in 34 cases, and in adults, bone marrow involvement was  diagnosed in  31 cases. Neuroblastoma  was the most common malignancy, which involved the bone marrow in pediatric cases, followed Ewing’s sarcoma& retinoblastoma .Among adult patients, neuroendocrine carcinoma involving bone marrow,primary malignancy in  breast being common in women and prostatic carcinoma in men. Conclusion:  small round blue cell tumors are the major cause of bone marrow involvement in pediatric,.Use of immunohistochemistry markers on bone marrow biopsies  results in higher detection rate