What Do Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) Patients Experience During A Bone Marrow Biopsy?

In order to make an acute myeloid leukemia (AML) diagnosis, there are some critical tests that need to be done first.

Dr. Tara Lin, Director of the Acute Leukemia Program at the University of Kansas Medical Center, makes these diagnoses every day in her clinic and has some perspective for patients, which we hope can alleviate some of the anxiety.

RELATED: What Are the Symptoms of AML? 

As Dr. Lin explains, bone marrow biopsies take samples from the back of the hips by inserting a needle and extracting liquid bone marrow and a small chip of bone for examination.

Once performing the biopsy, Dr. Lin says that the medical team will look for red and white blood cells in the bone marrow in order to conclude whether they’re abnormal or the number of cells are low.

“What we can do is actually make slides and look at cells underneath the microscope with our eyes to get a better sense of ‘are all the cells are there, are the cells normal, do they look abnormal’ and then we do additional testing from there to further characterize any abnormal cells that may be present,” Dr. Lin tells SurvivorNet.

Bone Marrow And Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)

AML is a type of cancer in the bone marrow, which produces blood cells and platelets. Red blood cells give oxygen and energy while white blood cells fight infection. For patients who have abnormal blood cell counts, this can lead to symptoms including fatigue, shortness of breath, and unexplained bruising. Bone marrow biopsies are critical for patients, seeing as AML can worsen quickly if not treated.

“I think it’s very important that patients not be unduly frightened by this procedure because when done in hands of those who do many of them it’s really important and not as bad as people often say,” Dr. Gail Roboz, a medical oncologist at Weill Cornell Medicine, told SurvivorNet.

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