Dr. Ruth Prasanna Mark
BACKGROUND Lymphomas are the common haematological malignancies encountered in clinical practice. Most of them present with enlarged lymph nodes and extra nodal presentation is a rare feature. All the lymphoma cases require peripheral blood and bone marrow studies to stage the disease before chemotherapy. Peripheral blood and bone marrow involvement play a major role in the prognosis of these patients. We had studied various haematological parameters in diagnosed cases of lymphomas, in which bone marrow aspiration was also done as a part of staging of the disease. METHODS This is a three-year retrospective study conducted in the department of pathology of a tertiary care hospital. Material for the study included lymphoma cases that underwent bone marrow aspiration also for staging of the disease. Clinical details, haematological parameters and bone marrow findings were collected from the files and recorded. RESULTS A total of 63 cases of lymphomas were included in the study that comprised of 15 (23.8%) and 48 (76.2%) cases of Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL) respectively. Anaemia was the prominent feature in cases that showed bone marrow infiltration and accounted for 94.2% of these cases. CONCLUSIONS Anaemia alone or in combination with other abnormal blood counts is common finding in patients of lymphoma, more frequently in non-Hodgkin lymphoma showing bone marrow infiltration. A detailed study of peripheral blood smear showed atypical lymphoid cells in 41.6% of patients with marrow infiltration.
