199 Adequacy of Bone Marrow Specimens With Manual Needle Technique Vs Powered Bone Marrow Drill: A Single Teaching Institution Experience.

Objectives: Bone marrow specimens (aspirate and core biopsy) are invaluable in the diagnosis of hematologic disorders. These can be obtained via the traditional manual needle method (such as the Jamshedi) or the newly developed powered drills, which our teaching institution has recently started using. This study is aimed at comparing the adequacy of bone marrow specimens for pathologic examination obtained from adult patients via the standard manual technique to a powered drill and thereby providing valuable feedback to our clinical colleagues. Methods: A total of 245 serial bone marrow specimens (125 manual and 120 powered) performed by 13 hematology-oncology fellows were included. The specimen quality was obtained by retrospective review of pathology reports that includes information on quality and adequacy of specimens based on presence of particles for aspirate, and presence of at least 10 mm of evaluable marrow in core biopsy. Results: Out of 125 manual marrow aspirate procedures, 77% were adequate for evaluation. Out of 120 powered marrow aspirate procedures, 75% were adequate for evaluation. Of a total of 145 manual core biopsies, 70% were adequate, and of 100 powered core biopsies, 60% were adequate. Conclusion: Our results indicate that both manual and powered bone marrow procedures yield similarly adequate specimens for pathologic evaluation. These results are reassuring and support the continued use of the powered technique in our large teaching institution, as powered techniques have been reported to be more user friendly (less time and more ergonomic) and, more importantly, result in significantly less pain for the patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]