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Myelocytes

Hi everybody, today I went to emergency because of big headaches and cramps which could not be calmed by other medecines. I had a blood test, and all seems to be normal except myelocytes which are at 0.03 against 0.01 during my first pcr, I have no blast. Iam a bit worried but as I had in not very good term with my onc I would be gratefull to have answer of my questions. Is it normal to have a little number of those cell in blood? I will have my pcr at 6 months in 2 weeks and I hope I can change of oncologist. Lucas, I saw the disaster of Brazil and I think Brandao would have been better than Fred lol!

Ps: Brandao is suspended because He gave a head punch and broke the nose of Thiago Motta.

Hi francis. I think myelocytes should be less than 1%. actually, few machines can read your level of myelocytes. i think there's no reason for worry. in august i had a little increase in my band cells number and all my doctors told me that that was normal. you're doing great. better than me!

Man....the world cup was a disaster. fred was our worst player (foward with 1 goal in 6 matches...). Now ot's election time... i hope we'll don't have another disaster in this area too :D

Thanks for the answer lucas. To be more precise, my blood test indicate myelemia at 0,4% and 0,03 in value. I hope that it doesn't affect my bcr abl, I have called the labotary which told me that under 2% they don't precise myelemia. Is that usual in everybody or not? I am a bit worried because I feel the same than at the diagnosis: pain in the neck, head...
Lucas if one day you go to France I would be very happy to make you visit my country: cheese, wine, landscape and art of life!

You're welcome, francis.

if under 2% is the normal, you are under 2%, so you're normal. it probably won't affect your pcr. I went to france once - paris. it was 2010 and i spent christmans there (new years eve in london). it was fine. very nice city, great museums, etc. etc.. I friend of mine went to lyon last year and said it's a very nice city and the people are more loveble than the parisians. I hope i can go back some day. :)

p.s. i'm now on tasigna team :D

if you want to mail me, sandy has my mail.

Cheers and good luck!

From little digging round I have come up with the following, which I hope will answer your question.

A myelocyte is a young cell of the granulocytic series, occurring normally in bone marrow, but not in circulating blood, they are usually confined to the marrow at approximately 10% of the nucleated cells..... in pathologic states, myelocytes are seen in blood- Neutrophil precursors (e.g., promyelocytes, myelocytes, and metamyelocytes) at more than 10% of white blood cells (in marrow) should be investigated.

In CML at diagnosis there can be spleen enlargement, anaemia, markedly elevated levels of leukocytes, thrombocytosis, eosinophilia, basophilia, and a predominance of myelocytes in the peripheral blood.

Neutrophilic myelocytes are commonly seen in acute infections and in conditions affecting the environment of the bone marrow.

So I agree with Lucas that you should not stress about this low level in your test result. It shows virtually no presence of myelocytes in your peripheral blood and the difference between 0.03 nd 0.0l is so small it is not worth even considering.

I hope you can find some relief from your headaches and cramps which my well be a TKI side effect issue rather than symptoms of something else like an infection such as flu etc.

I don't think you need worry as this will not affect your q-PCR result.

I have sent you an email with Lucs cc'd s requested.

ref:
http://www.cap.org/apps/docs/proficiency_testing/2012_hematology_glossar...
http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/peripheral-blood-film

Thanks very much, It is clearer now, the body and blood languages are very very difficult to understand. The most difficult is that I can't ask to my onc because he is too busy and I am fed up with this situation, so fortunately you are here to help us. The next few weeks will be a bit awfull to wait for the pcr at 6 months, finger crossed. Lucas, I saw that now you take tasigna, good for you, you will have good results for sure. I have forgotten to say that my worry is a bit increased by the type of my cml: philadelphie masked but bcr abl fusion and high sokal score!

Thanks, francis! my sokal score was pretty high too due the spleen size. now, put in your mind that the sokal score is from the interferon era (70's/80's). there's some research with imatinib and sokal score but not much with 2ยบ generation tkis. a lot of people have high sokal and do great (my neighbour had a very high sokal and he is pcru), what predicts survival is a good response and yours were very, very good. Good luck!

Sorry for being a bit boring but I have got one last question. I watched an other time this blood test. In fact, it is myelemia at 0.03 and not myelocytes sorry to have made the confusion. In the mean time, on wiki myelemia is defined like this : travelling of myelocytes, metamyelocytes in the normal blood. It is quite the same than the link you gave me Sandy. So my question is, can we say that there is a "normal range" in melemya for everybody?

My understanding is that myelemia means the same as myelocytosis which is an overabundance of meylocytes in either the marrow or peripheral blood.