Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Haematological disorders are one of the most common disorders encountered by physician ranging from anaemias to malignancies having wide range of presentations. Pancytopenia having various aetiologies poses a diagnostic challenge. Bone marrow aspiration and biopsy has a key role in diagnosis and treatment of haematological disorders and various systemic illnesses like pyrexia of unknown aetiology where the underlying aetiology is not obvious. The present study was undertaken to analyse the spectrum of bone marrow aspiration and biopsy findings in various haematological and systemic illnesses.
MATERIALS AND METHODS:  This is a retrospective and prospective study. Fifty patients were included in whom bone marrow aspiration and biopsy was done for various disorders. Patients with bleeding disorders and patients whose diagnosis was confirmed by clinical profile and initiated on treatment were excluded from the study.
RESULTS: The common indications of bone marrow examination in our study are Pancytopenia followed by anemia, leukemia and multiple myeloma.
Out of 50 cases, 2 cases were excluded from analysis due to inadequate sample. Of the remaining 48 cases – 4 were normocellular (8.4%), 22 cases (45.8%) are of hematological malignancies,  20 (41.7%)were non-malignant hematological disorders, 2 cases (4%) are of non-hematologic disorder.
Among 50 cases 33 (66%) cases were diagnosed on basis of clinical profile and  bonemarrow examination was just to strengthen the diagnosis, 15 (30%) cases were diagnosed only on bone marrow examination and the remaining 2 (4%) cases required further work-up.
CONCLUSION: Bone marrow aspiration is an invasive and useful technique which can diagnose and confirm many haematological and non-hematologic diseases accurately. The clinical profile alone cannot be sufficient at times for diagnosis of certain disorders and leaves physicians in a dilemma. This study emphasizes the need for Bone marrow examination in guiding the physicians for early detection of various underlying conditions and thereby  modifying the outcome of disease