Background: Bone marrow necrosis (BMN) affects both stromal tissue and hematopoietic precursors and its prevalence ranges from 0.3–37%, being the hematologic malignancies the most frequent cause.

Aim: To describe the clinical and pathological characteristics of 30 patients with BMN diagnosed and treated at our institution.

Methodology: We included all adult patients diagnosed during the last 8 years (2000– 2007) via bone marrow aspiration and biopsy.

Results: Median age was 44 years (range 14–78); 53.3% were females. 42.2% of the patients died within a month mainly due to adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and septic shock. Just 5 (16.7%) of them are still alive. In all cases, BMN was of coagulative type, and extense in 23 (76.6%) of the patients. The main symptoms were: bone pain (53%), anemia (53%) and fever (50%), whereas the main underlying diseases were: acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in 26.7%, non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in 13.3% and multiple myeloma (MM) in 10% of the patients.

Conclusions: BMN is associated to a fatal course and to hematologic malignancies in most of our patients.

Topics:
bone marrow necrosis, hematologic neoplasms, respiratory distress syndrome, adult, acute lymphocytic leukemia, anemia, biopsy, bone marrow aspiration, bone pain, fever, lymphoma, non-hodgkin

Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

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2008, The American Society of Hematology
2008
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