Figure 2

Classification of patients according to immunomagnetic detection of MOC31-positive cells in bone marrow (BM) specimens. BM samples from control patients (white), and from patients with 'localized' breast cancer (gray) and patients with 'advanced' breast cancer (black) were subjected to the immunomagnetic technique for the detection of MOC31-positive cells. These patients were then divided into three groups on the basis of the number of cells trapped: group A includes patients with more than 150 cells, group B includes those with 50–150 trapped cells, and group C includes those with less than 50 cells trapped among 50 million nucleated BM cells.