ABSTRACT
Introduction Bone marrow (BM ) sampling for malignant lymphoma (M L) is done in a
number of clinical settings: • Staging of patients with diagnosis of ML already established from other
tissue site. • To attempt to establish an in itial diagnosis of M L in a patient with lymph-
adenopathy in deep sites, not readily accessible for biopsy. • Restaging of an M L patient to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment or
for disease recurrence. • Evaluation of a patient with cytopenia(s), fever, and/or organomegaly in
whom M L is not specifically suspected. The principles of BM examination for lymphoma are similar regardless of the
indication, with some special considerations regarding Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), which is discussed separately at the end of this chapter. The following discussion is based on the perspective of BM examination for M L as a global process and not from that of individual diseases.
