Immunohistological analysis of human bone marrow trephine biopsies using monoclonal antibodies.

This paper describes the use of a recently developed immuno-alkaline phosphatase method (the 'APAAP' technique) for labelling frozen sections of undecalcified bone marrow biopsies with monoclonal antibodies, including reagents reactive with T cells and their subsets, B cells, glycophorin, HLA-DR antigen, common ALL antigen, epithelial cells and megakaryocytes. Use of an immuno-alkaline phosphatase technique avoids problems due to endogenous enzyme activity encountered when staining bone marrow by immunoperoxidase procedures. Immunohistological labelling of frozen trephine biopsies is of particular value when it is impossible to aspirate marrow particles and for identifying cells which do not readily enter suspension (e.g. dendritic reticulum cells or stromal cells). Details are given of cases in which immunohistological analysis was used for the phenotyping of acute leukaemias, for the differential diagnosis of intramedullary T and B cell proliferations, and for identifying bone marrow metastases.