Types of Specimens Used To Diagnosis Leukemia

Most of the symptoms of Leukemia are not unique. Some of these symptoms can be caused by other problems like infections. For these reasons a acurate diagnosis is needed and the best way to do this is for your doctor to take cell samples from the childs blood and bone marrow.
     Blood cell count and blood cell examination: changes in the number of different cell types  and the apperance of these cells under the microscope often make the doctor suspect Leukemia. Most children with Acute Leukemia (ALL or AML) will have either too many white cells in their blood and not enough red blood cells (oxygen carrying cells) and/or not enough platelets (cells that plug up small holes in blood vessels and stop bleeding from cuts and bruises). In addition many of the white blood cells in these children will be Blasts, a type of cell normally found in the bone marrow but not in circulating blood. Even though these findings may make your doctor think that Leukemia is present, usually the desease cannot be diagnosed for sure with out obtaining a sample of bone marrow cells.
     Bone marrow aspiration and biopsy: Bone marrow aspiration requires removing a small amount of bone marrow. Usually the sample is taken from the back of the pelvic bone. The bone is numbed with a local anesthetic, in some cases the child is given something to put them to sleep. My daughter would call this "MILK" medicine and it would immediately put her to sleep. The doctor would connect a syringe with the "MILK" medicine and McKenzie would administer it herself. About half way through administering the medicine to herself, someone would have to catch her because she was out. It works very fast at putting the child to sleep.At this point a needle is inserted through the outter bone into the marrow space and some marrow is removed for biopsy. These tests are used for initial diagnosis and are repeated later to see how well the child is responding to therapy.
     Other blood tests: Children with Leukemia will have tests done to measure the amount of certain chemicals in the blood, in order to evaluate how well their liver and kidneys are doing. These tests are not used to diagnosis Leukemia. But, in children already diagnosed with Leukemia, these tests help to detect liver or kidney problems due to damage by the spread of Leukemic cells or the side effects of certain Chemotherapy drugs.