The Contraindications to Bone Marrow Aspirates and Lumbar Punctures

The official diagnosis of leukemia is somewhere between 20 and 25% blast within the bone marrow. Most studies that we use require that you actually have at least 25% on the bone marrow in order to be eligible for a study. The only times we try not to do it is if the kids in Florida DIC and we really worry about causing us spinal hematoma. But otherwise prognostically and kind of treatment wise, it's so, so important to figure out whether they have seen us leukemia or not.