The Use of Bovine Albumin in the Examination of Bone Marrow Obtained at Autopsy

This report presents the findings using a minor modification of Berenbaum’s albumin method of preparing bone marrow smears on post-mortem material. The method was used in 50 cases ranging in time from two to 23 hours after death and in the majority of cases (72 per cent) produced specimens of the superior cytologic quality to direct bone marrow smears obtained at the same time. This technique is especially valuable when used in conjunction with tissue sections and bone marrow cell blocks obtained at autopsy. This method has been successfully used with two histochemical techniques suggesting its usefulness in the application of other histochemical procedures in the study of autopsy marrows. The simplicity of this technique lends itself readily to routine use on a general autopsy service and should certainly be employed where hematologic disorders are suspected, especially when clinical bone marrow material is inadequate or not available.