Gaucher's disease. I. Modern enzymatic and anatomic methods of diagnosis.

The physician who diagnoses Gaucher's disease should take advantage of the noninvasive method that analyzes WBCs for residual beta-glucocerebrosidase and beta-glucosidase activities. When this method is carried out in conjunction with the measurement of serum acid phosphatase levels, a bone marrow examination may be unnecessary. With this method, we studied an adult who had mild splenomegaly and abdominal pain. When bone marrow was finally obtained subsequent to diagnosis by the enzymatic analysis, the deposits that are specifically formed in Gaucher's disease were easily demonstrated by electron microscopy. We believe that these methods are more specific for the diagnosis of Gaucher's disease than is the light microscopic finding of bone marrow cells that have abundant and striated cytoplasm.