Publisher's Synopsis
This atlas provides instructions for the culture of human hematopoietic precursor cells in methylcellulose. The morphology of live colonies from healthy individuals and patients with hematological disorders collected over the last 25 years is illustrated by 230 photographs. These photos provide evidence of the wide range of normality on the one hand, and demonstrate the recurrence of typical disease-associated growth patterns in different patients with the same disease on the other. The text focuses on the use of precursor cell cultures as a complementary tool for the diagnosis and follow-up of hematological stem cell disorders, highlighting their value in the differential diagnosis of hypoplastic and myeloproliferative disorders, with special emphasis on polycythemia vera, myelodysplastic syndromes, and chronic myelomonocytic leukemia. Practical and concise, this guide addresses clinical and experimental hematologists, technicians and teachers interested in human hematopoietic stem cells. Offering a unique collection of photographs taken at steady reproducible culture conditions by a hematologist with extensive clinical and experimental experience, it fills a gap in the current hematology literature.
