Abstract
FUKUSHIMA, Y., FUKUDA, M., TAKAHASHI, T., YOSHIDA, K. and MIURA, A.B. Differential Polycythemia: A Comparative Study between Spurious Polycythemia and Pure Erythrocytosis. Tohoku J. exp. Med., 1987, 153 (2), 103-110-The definite differential diagnosis between spurious polycythemia (SP) and pure erythrocytosis (PE) was tested. Serum erythropoietin (EPO) levels in 6 patients with PE were 12.8±3.7mU/ml and were significantly lower than those of both 19 normal controls (28.5±15.0mU/ml) and 9 patients with SP (21.3±10.2mU/ml). Three of 11 patients with SP and 1 of 3 patients with PE had significantly higher marrow erythroid progenitor cells (CFU-Es) than those of the normal controls. Spontaneous CFU-E growth (CFU-E growth in the absence of added EPO) was found in 4 of 11 patients with SP, 1 of 3 patients with PE, and all patients with polycythemia vera. However, the number of spontaneous CFU-E was low in SP and PE. The measurements of serum EPO levels and CFU-E growth did not provide differentiation between PE and SP. Even if some patients, whose total red cell volumes are either higher than 12.5% above the mean predicted values or their CFU-E growth is great, are diagnosed as SP, consideration should be made that they might, in fact, have PE.
