[en] 6 patients with thrombocytopenia and anaemia had fatty marrow replacement at the site of an iliac crest. ⁵Fe scans showed marked abnormalities of bone marrow distribution. Particularly, the uptake of radioiron into the pelvis was almost absent. The sternal maroow was cellular. Studies of the bone marrow which included cytology, histology and electron miceoscopy failed to reveal why the pelvic marrow was aplastic. Occasional vascular lesions could be seen in the iliac crest bone marrow sections. The cellular morphology showed slight maturation abnormalities. Ferrokinetics were consistent with erythroid marrow hypoplasia. The pelvic and sternal marrow cellularity in patients with pancytopenia may not be representative of the cellularity of the whole marrow, and the pelvic marrow especially may be prone to aplasia. (author)

[en] As part of the staging of 38 patients with Hodgkin's disease seen over an 18-month period, we have used radioisotopic scanning of bone, as well as radiography and bone marrow biopsy, in an attempt to assess osseous and bone marrow involvement. Of the 38 patients, 14 were found to have skeletal involvement. In 11 this was histologically proved. In 8 patients, the radioisotopic scan first raised the suspicion of localized bone involvement, which was subsequently proved by bone marrow biopsy or by radiography. We believe that bone marrow involvement may at times be localized when patients with Hodgkin's disease are first staged and may precede local osseous involvement. If this is so, a reasonable approach to the search for bone marrow or osseous involvement would be to start with a bone scan and to follow this with a bone marrow biopsy from the suspicious area or a careful radiography of the same site; the latter is important if the site of increased uptake of the radionuclide is inaccessible to the biopsy needle. (U.S.)

[en] In 19 cases of secondary hematologic disorders in patients previously treated for Hodgkin's disease, chromosome aberrations were analyzed in relation to the type of previous chemo- and/or radiotherapy, age of the patients, histopathologic features of the Hodgkin's disease at diagnosis, time interval between the treatment and the occurrence of the secondary disorder, and survival. The karyotype was of significant prognostic value when three cytogenetic groups were considered: patients with normal karyotypes; patients with aberrations of chromosome 7 as the sole anomaly; and patients with complex rearrangements and translocations. The last group showed the lowest rate of survival. Bone marrow transplantation was successful in two patients with a normal karyotype

[en] Carbon-11 thymidine (TdR) uptake using positron emission tomography (PET) has been measured in ten patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). The rate of TdR uptake (mean +/- s.d.) was of 0.009 +/- 0.006 mumol.100 cc-1.min-1 in low-grade NHL. This rate was 0.063 +/- 0.049 mumol.100 cc-1.min-1 in intermediate-grade NHL and 0.159 mumol.100 cc-1.min-1 in a patient with high-grade NHL. Lymphoma radioactivity reached a plateau at 0.42 +/- 0.22%. 100 cc-1 of the injected dose from 10 min after injection. The highest ¹¹C uptakes were observed in the kidneys and in the liver (3.30 +/- 1.30 and 2.10 +/- 0.05%. 100 cc-1 of the injected dose, respectively). The lymphoma-to-muscle ratio was of 11.8 +/- 1.7, whereas the lymphoma-to-intestine ratio was of 1.5 +/- 0.7. Accordingly, the measurement of [¹¹C]TdR uptake in the abdomen may need other imaging methods for adequate interpretation. The results suggest that [¹¹C]TdR uptake using PET might be a method for noninvasively measuring cell proliferation in vivo

[en] Published in summary form only

[en] The iron uptake in bone marrow and spleen was measured in 29 patients with myelofibrosis using ⁵²Fe and quantitative scanning. In 10 patients, no iron uptake in the marrow could be observed and active erythropoiesis was extramedullary only. In the bone marrow of patients with myelofibrosis, the iron uptake per nucleated red cell was less than that observed in conditions without myelofibrosis or extramedullary erythropoiesis. Increasing splenic iron uptake was likely to be associated with a decreasing bone marrow iron uptake and was related to the size of the spleen. The data suggest that in myelofibrosis, the spleen dominates iron uptake through intense erythropoiesis and a high splenic blood flow, thus restraining iron supply to the bone marrow. (author)

[en] A patient with hereditary spherocytosis was admitted with mediastinal masses on the chest X-ray. ⁵²Fe and positron emission tomography (PET) showed uptake of ⁵²Fe in the masses and established the diagnosis of thoracic extra medullary hematopoiesis. (orig.)