Two cases of carcinoma of the lung characterized by a bone marrow agar culture pattern resembling acute myeloid leukemia

In vitro agar culture patterns of bone marrow cells in acute myeloid leukemia may show several growth patterns, including cultures where no colonies or clusters develop, cultures with varying numbers of clusters and no colonies, or colony and cluster formation with an extremely high ratio of clusters to colonies. Twelve cases of carcinoma of the lung are described, of which two show an in vitro growth pattern of cluster formation alone, characteristic of that seen in acute myeloid leukemia. The remaining ten patients showed slightly reduced colony numbers compared to normal.