Three patients showed repeated bone exposure and infection after initial operation.
In their original series, Masquelet et al. [3] reported that some of the patients required repeated bone grafts and that fracture occurred in four of the 35 cases.
Since the cells are autologous and derived from the patients' own bone marrow, we developed a cryopreservation process that will allow banking of patients' cells for repeated use, thus avoiding the need for repeated bone marrow aspiration procedures for harvesting of fresh cells.
Repeated bone marrow aspirations, however, are not practical.
Finally, repeated bone scans would increase radiation exposure but also have cost implications.
In the group of 84 patients with repeated bone marrow samples available after chemotherapy, 43 (51.2%) had CK-19 mRNA-positive DTCs compared with 53 (63.1%) patients before chemotherapy (P=0.099).
In 162 (98.2%) of them, a blood sample was also available after the completion of treatment, whereas only 84 (50.9%) consented for a repeated bone marrow aspiration after adjuvant chemotherapy.
The reduced uptake of radiolabelled phosphonates could also reflect a true decrease in metabolic bone activity due to the therapeutic effect of the bisphosphonates, especially when repeated bone scintigraphy takes place after a long interval of bisphosphonate treatment [ 23].
To explore the measurement variability of KXRF bone lead measurements in young subjects, the tibiae of two male cadavers from Boston, Massachusetts, 17 and 20 years of age, were obtained for repeated bone lead measurements.
When the STLS occurred, repeated bone marrow cytology and biopsy did not show evidence of a large tumor burden or of tumor types which had been reported in association with STLS.
