B-cell precursors in normal pediatric bone marrow.

A number of studies have been published pertaining to "normal" lymphocyte subsets in bone marrow. However, these studies are based on normal adult marrow or marrows of children with leukemia in remission or other systemic illness. Data on hematologically normal children are lacking. This study demonstrates that, compared with that of adults, bone marrow of hematologically normal children has an increased percentage of B cells and B-cell precursors. Dual-parameter flow cytometric methods demonstrated subpopulations of B cells at various stages of differentiation; the percentage of cells in these subsets is highest in the very young and decreases with increasing age. Caution must be exercised when searching for early leukemic relapse in pediatric marrows because these normal immature B-cell precursors immunophenotypically resemble leukemic blasts.