[Immunohistochemistry and morphometry of bone marrow in acquired immunodeficiency syndrome with special emphasis on megakaryopoiesis and macrophages].

An immunomorphometric study was performed on formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded bone marrow biopsies in 20 patients with AIDS (18 males, 2 females-stage IV A-D). In comparison with a control group megakaryocytes (CD61-Y2/51) revealed not only a significant hyperplasia, but remarkably irregular shapes of cells and nuclei, together with a disturbance of the nuclear-cytoplasmic ratio. No predominance of micromegakaryocytes as in myelodysplastic syndromes was observable. Contrasting idiopathic (immune)-thrombocytopenia, HIV-infected patients with a pronounced depression of the platelet count did not show a significant elevation of the number of promegakaryoblasts. This feature is in keeping with findings of a severe impairment of progenitor cell proliferation and differentiation in AIDS. There was a pronounced increase in the macrophage population (PG-M1). This alteration may be related to inflammatory lesions accompanying this disorder as well as to an enforced and premature destruction of hematopoietic cell elements in the myeloid stroma.