MICROANATOMY

Detailed explanation-1: -When a patient has leukemia, abnormal immature white blood cells (called blasts) multiply uncontrollably, filling up the bone marrow, and preventing production of other cells important for survival, namely red blood cells and platelets. This leads to infections, anemia and abnormal bleeding.

Detailed explanation-2: -(In normal bone marrow, the blast count is 5% or less, while the blood usually doesn’t contain any blasts.) AML can also be diagnosed if the blasts are found (using another test) to have a chromosome change that occurs only in a specific type of AML, even if the blast percentage doesn’t reach 20%.

Detailed explanation-3: -Bone Marrow Blast Cells The stem cell chooses its path of development into one of two cell lines, lymphoid or myeloid. In the myeloid cell line, the term “blast cell” refers to myeloblasts or myeloid blasts. These are the very earliest and most immature cells of the myeloid cell line.