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What Can a Bone Marrow Test Determine?

In the human body, there are more than 200 bones. Inside many of these bones is a material called bone marrow. Bone marrow is made of fatty connective tissue containing stem cells, which turn into red or white blood cells or platelets that are essential to all tissues of the body and to immune system function. Because of this, doctors sometimes perform bone marrow tests in order to evaluate the health of an individual.

  1. Cancer

    • Cancer is a condition in which the body's own cells act abnormally in some way, causing the affected individual to become sick. A bone marrow test can determine whether the cells produced in the bone marrow are compromised by cancer or whether cancer has spread to the bone marrow tissue from another part of the body.

    Anemia

    • Anemia is a condition in which a person has a low red blood cell count. That can be serious because red blood cells carry oxygen throughout the body. Because red blood cells are produced in the bone marrow, a bone marrow test can allow doctors to determine the specific type of anemia based on the abnormality of the bone marrow cells.

    Cell Ratios

    • Some diseases, such as anemia and cancer, result in abnormal ratios of cell types. A bone marrow test reveals the severity of the ratio abnormality. This gives the doctor an idea of how severe the disease might be or how far it might have progressed.

    Treatment Effectiveness

    • Some diseases cause the bone marrow to produce low numbers of certain cell types, such as white blood cells. Cancer is a primary example of this. A doctor can use a bone marrow test to monitor the cell production. By doing this, the doctor also can monitor the effectiveness of a prescribed treatment. For instance, if a person has cancer and a low white blood cell count, and is given chemotherapy drugs, the doctor can do a bone marrow test to see whether the level of white blood cells went up after the drugs were used. This is vital to help physicians determine whether another course of treatment might be necessary.

    Transplant Viability

    • When bone marrow is severely compromised, a bone marrow transplant may be necessary. However, because bone is living tissue, the tissue that is transplanted must be compatible with the original bone marrow. Doctors can use bone marrow tests to determine whether a bone marrow transplant is a viable option given the status of the recipient and the donor.

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