A standardized endogenous megakaryocytic erythroid colony assay for the diagnosis of essential thrombocythemia

Laboratoire d' Hematologie of the Centres Hospitaliers Universitaires d'Angers, France.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The reliability of assays of endogenous megakaryocytic colony (EMC) and endogenous erythroid colony (EEC) formation for the diagnosis of thrombocytoses remains controversial. We tested the suitability of a recently developed collagen-based assay of EMC formation for the diagnosis of essential thrombocythemia (ET). DESIGN AND METHODS: This was a multicenter (8 laboratories) study including 121 patients: 82 with ET and 39 with reactive thrombocytoses (RT). EMC and EEC were assessed in each laboratory in serum-free, cytokine-free, standardized collagen gel assays; bone marrow (BM) and peripheral blood (PB) were tested in parallel. RESULTS: In PB cultures, only EEC were specific for ET. In BM cultures, both EMC and EEC were specific for ET and present in assays of 77.8% (EMC) and 33.3% (EEC) of ET patients. Altogether, 80.2% of ET patients had BM EMC and/or EEC, whereas none of the patients with RT did. INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS: When performed with BM progenitors for the diagnosis of thrombocytoses, positivity of the standardized EMC/EEC assay in collagen is specific (100%) and detects 80% of ET.

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