Bone marrow reconversion

Last revised by Henry Knipe on 13 Jan 2024

Citation, DOI, disclosures and article data

Citation:

Knipe H, Al Khateeb A, Vadera S, et al. Bone marrow reconversion. Reference article, Radiopaedia.org (Accessed on 19 Apr 2024) https://doi.org/10.53347/rID-147089

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53347/rID-147089

Permalink:

https://radiopaedia.org/articles/147089

rID:

147089

Article created:

9 Jun 2022, Henry Knipe ◉ ◈

Disclosures:

At the time the article was created Henry Knipe had the following disclosures:

Radiopaedia Events Pty Ltd, Speaker fees (past)
Integral Diagnostics, Shareholder (ongoing)
Micro-X Ltd, Shareholder (ongoing)

These were assessed during peer review and were determined to not be relevant to the changes that were made.

View Henry Knipe's current disclosures

Last revised:

13 Jan 2024, Henry Knipe ◉ ◈

Disclosures:

At the time the article was last revised Henry Knipe had the following disclosures:

Integral Diagnostics, Shareholder (ongoing)
Micro-X Ltd, Shareholder (ongoing)

These were assessed during peer review and were determined to not be relevant to the changes that were made.

View Henry Knipe's current disclosures

Revisions:

8 times, by 4 contributors - see full revision history and disclosures

Systems:

Musculoskeletal, Haematology

Synonyms:

Red marrow reconversion
Haematopoetic bone marrow reconversion
Yellow-to-red bone marrow reconversion
Diffuse hematopoietic marrow hyperplasia
Diffuse haematopoietic marrow hyperplasia
Diffuse benign hematopoietic marrow hyperplasia
Diffuse benign haematopoietic marrow hyperplasia

Bone marrow reconversion, also known as diffuse hematopoietic marrow hyperplasia ^5,6, generates a red bone marrow pattern that is in reverse to the normal red-to-yellow distribution.

physiological
- cigarette smoking
- obesity
- high endurance athletes
- high altitude
iatrogenic
- post granulocyte-colony stimulating factor treatment
- post erythropoietin treatment
pathological
- severe chronic anemia, e.g. sickle cell disease, thalassemia, hereditary spherocytosis
- diabetes mellitus
- chronic respiratory disease

Radiographic features

MRI

Signal intensity will be that of normal red marrow being low T1 signal but still higher than skeletal muscle ^1,3. In the appendicular skeleton, it tends to be symmetrical and homogeneous, whereas in the axial skeletal it can be heterogeneous/multifocal ¹. Marrow reconversion occurs in the reverse order of normal red to yellow marrow conversion ⁴.