[Electron microscopy for bioptic bone marrow diagnosis]

Electron microscopy is an important supplementary tool in bioptic diagnosis of bone marrow lesions. The hematologically specialised clinical pathologist should better resort to it for all bone marrow investigations. The routine pathologist can focus attention at least on certain diagnostic cases, such as children, or on sequential biopsies with specific diagnostic problems. It will be necessary, in such cases, to use proper fixation and, before further processing to cut the bone marrow sample into small pieces without delay. Electron microscopy has worked well, in the context of our own material, for differential diagnosis between various forms of myelogenous leukemia, hypereosinophilia of bone marrow and lymphocytic leukemia as well as between immature multiple myeloma and malignant lymphoma, centrocytic/centroblastic malignant lymphoma and nodular sclerosis of Hodgkin's disease and in the diagnosis of megakaryocytic leukemia.