Diagnostic Outcome of bone marrow aspiration in a new centre in Nigeria

Damulak Obadiah Dapus¹* and Damen James G²

¹Department of Haematology and Blood Transfusion, University of Jos, Nigeria.

²Department of Medical Laboratory Science Technology, University of Jos, Nigeria.

*Corresponding author E-mail: ddamulak@yahoo.com

Accepted 27 July, 2012

Abstract

The development of manpower for the tertiary level of health care services in developing countries is inadequate resulting in the establishment of a new centre as soon as the specialist is available. This is usually met by the high health demands from the community in the face of near lack of modern technological diagnostic advancement in the health sector. There is great need to study the morphologic outcome of bone marrow aspiration done in our centre for generation of baseline data and planning. Records of bone marrow Aspiration cytology done in Plateau State Specialist Hospital, Jos, Nigeria between January 2007 and June 2012 were studied. A total of 97 bone marrow aspiration were requested for and done in the Plateau State Specialist Hospital, Jos, within the study period. 55(56.8%) were males while 42(43.2%) were females. Eighty four (87.6%) had pathologic outcome while 13(13.4%) had normal or reactive marrow appearance. Pathologic marrow outcome were 28.6% leukaemias, 33.3% nutrient deficiency anaemias, 11.9% burkitt’s lymphoma, 4.1% multiple myloma, 8.3% bone marrow failure and others 13.I%. Common haematologic disorders in our setting are nutritional anaemias and leukaemias. There is need to expand the scope of laboratory investigations beyond morphology.

Keywords: Bone marrow aspiration, features, outcome