SUPERIORITY OF ILIAC OVER STERNAL MARROW ASPIRATION IN RECOVERY OF NEOPLASTIC CELLS

Abstract

IT WAS indicated by one of us (M. A. R.) in a previous report¹ that aspiration of bone marrow from the iliac crest may at times provide information not obtained from simultaneous aspiration of the sternal marrow in such infiltrative diseases of the hematopoietic system as multiple myeloma, metastatic cancer to bone, and lymphatic leukemia. In these conditions the iliac marrow often appeared to be involved earlier and more frequently than the sternal marrow. Only a few patients with metastatic cancer were included in this previous study of the relative merits of iliac and sternal marrow aspirations. PRESENT STUDY The present study is a report on 100 consecutive patients admitted to the Division of Neoplastic Diseases of Montefiore Hospital. Each of these patients had pathologically proved malignant disease with definite evidence of distant metastases. There were 32 patients with cancer of the breast, 18 with genitourinary cancer, 14 with