Onkológia 6/2014

Treatment of patients with low-risk myelodysplastic syndrome

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are clonal haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) disorders predominating in the elderly, characterised by ineffective haematopoiesis leading to blood cytopaenias and by progression to secondary acute leukaemia in one third of cases. Their pathophysiology is a multistep process involving cytogenetic changes and/or gene mutations and widespread gene hypermethylation at advanced stages . Prognosis is largely based on the marrow blast percentage, number and extent of cytopaenias and cytogenetic abnormalities, which are grouped in a recently Revised International Prognostic Scoring system (IPSS-R) . Treatment varying from symptomatic therapy of cytopaenias, especially by transfusions, to allogeneic stem cell transplantation (alloSCT) as improved in the last few years. The paper overviews the treatment of patients with low-risk MDS. In addition to treatment cytopenias are analyzed and specific cytogenetic subunit 5q- syndrome.

Keywords: myelodysplastic syndrome, cytopenia, low- risk, treatment, 5q- syndrome.