A scatter plot showing the percent of bone marrow hematogones related to patient age for the 432 specimens uninvolved by neoplastic cells.

There is the same significant decrease in the percent hematogones with increasing age as for the full cohort of 662 specimens, but the mean percent hematogones (1.99%) is higher than when all specimens are included (1.62%) (Figure 5). These 432 specimens most closely represent a reference population for bone marrow hematogones. (Two cases with 51% and 65% hematogones were off the scale of the scattergram and are not shown.)