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Is there another way to find out if someone has leukemia other than a bone marrow biopsy?

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  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Dude above me is correct. Bone Marrow Biopsy is the ONLY way to officially diagnose leukemia as well as determine a treatment protocol. If the leukemia is advanced enough, it will show in the blood, but you still need the biopsy to determine the specific type and subtype and cytogenics and to develop the protocol. In an acute leukemia though, you can be sick for a few weeks to a couple months without it showing in the blood work, and with chronic, a few months to a few years.

    Source(s): aml patient
  • 1 decade ago

    Apparent symptoms of leukemia and several other ailments are common in early onset of leukemia. Therefore, Bone Marrow Aspiration with Biopsy is the only test to determine the same.

    However, upon progression of leukemia, in most of the cases, large number of blast cells appear in peripheral blood and at that stage one need not do Bone Marrow test is not necessary.

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