Bone marrow is analyzed to diagnose blood or bone marrow cancers and to find out if a malignancy from somewhere else has spread to the bone marrow.
The procedure is simple and brief. It can be done in a doctor's office using a local anesthetic similar to the one used by your dentist. In much the same way as blood is taken from your arm, a needle is inserted into either the breast bone or the pelvic bone, both of which are just under the skin and are easily entered. A small amount of liquid bone marrow is drawn into a syringe, placed on slides and examined under a microscope for evidence of leukemia, lymphoma or any other cancer cells .
Sometimes a bone marrow biopsy may be done. A special cutting needle can be put into an anesthetized area of the pelvic bone and tiny bone chips can be removed. This procedure may be necessary for several reasons—to diagnose certain types of blood and bone marrow malignancies, to see if other cancers involve the marrow or as part of the staging process.
Bone marrow examinations are also sometimes done to check for infections, follow up the effectiveness of treatment or discover how well the bone marrow could produce blood cells if really aggressive chemotherapy was to be given.
