That is good information from Anjana. Additionally, the BMB and BMA are almost always done at the same time. The BMB takes a core sample of the bone and the marrow that clings to it (looks like a half-inch tiny worm) for the purpose of examining the structure. Then a needle is put through the hole and they suck out a large test tube full of the liquid inside the hip bone -- this is the aspiration (BMA). The aspirate contains the newest cells that have just been produced by the marrow, so it shows the most accurate current state of the CML disease. I do not know how they would do an aspiration unless they first made the hole doing the BMB, but maybe they did, but just did not send it to the lab for analysis.
The BMB tells you if your marrow is defective in some way, but the PCR tells the patient more when they are in the minimum residual disease state. See the following website for more explanation: http://www.forpath.org/0011/introduction.htm -Trey --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ [CMLHope] A support group of http://cmlhope.com ------------------------------------------------- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CMLHope" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/CMLHope -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
