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How would you approach a patient presenting with pancytopenia and splenomegaly whose bone marrow biopsy is morphologically normal but has a positive Philadelphia chromosome in bone marrow as well as peripheral blood?

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Mednet Member
Mednet Member
Hematology · UMass Chan Medical School

Given pancytopenia and splenomegaly, I’m surprised bone marrow is read as normal. Look for evidence of myelofibrosis in marrow by performing reticulin stain. How big is the spleen? This picture is consistent with CML. What is the blasts % in blood and marrow? What is the basophil %?

I would treat as...

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Mednet Member
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Medical Oncology · Kaiser Permanente-Santa Teresa-San Jose

I would strongly consider a possibility that Ph' chromosome has no relationship to splenomegaly in this case. The latter could have an entirely different etiology.

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