Hong Kong Med J ⎥ Volume 20 Number 1 ⎥ February 2014 ⎥ www.hkmj.org A 39-year-old Rhesus-positive mother had been well. She had been screened low risk (1:2496) for Down syndrome (DS) at the first-trimester combined screening in late 2012. The fetal morphology scan at 20 weeks of gestation was normal. Nevertheless, an ultrasound scan at 32 weeks of gestation showed bilateral pleural effusions. A...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The JAK2 V617F tyrosine kinase mutation is present in the great majority of patients with polycythemia vera (PV), and approximately half of the patients with essential thrombocythemia (ET) and primary myelofibrosis (PMF). The three distinct disease entities may be considered as three phenotypic presentations of the same JAK2 V617F positive chronic myeloproliferative di...

Loss of neurofibromin or interferon consensus sequence binding protein (Icsbp) leads to a myeloproliferative disorder. Transcription of NF1 is directly controlled by ICSBP. It has been postulated that loss of NF1 expression resulting from loss of transcriptional activation by ICSBP contributes to human hematologic malignancies. To investigate the functional cooperation of these 2 proteins, we h...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Chronic myeloproliferative disorders (CMDs) are thought to be due to mutation(s) in a single clone at the level of the hematopoietic stem cell (HSC). Such mutations and additional mutations causing progression of the disease are largely unknown. Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a CMD characterized by a chromosomal translocation between chromosomes 9 and 22 creating th...

RAS family members are among the most frequently mutated oncogenes in human cancers. Given the utility of zebrafish in both chemical and genetic screens, developing RAS-induced cancer models will make large-scale screens possible to understand further the molecular mechanisms underlying malignancy. We developed a heat shock-inducible Cre/Lox-mediated transgenic approach in which activated human...

Background. Multiple articles discuss the rare incidence and potential causes of second hematologic disorders arising after treatment of Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML), leading to the theory of imatinib, the current treatment regimen for CML, as a possible trigger for the development of secondary neoplasms. Our case eliminates the possibility of imatinib as the sole cause since our patient ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Although anagrelide is widely used in the treatment of thrombocythemia in myeloproliferative diseases, there is currently limited information on the efficacy and toxicity of its long-term use. This prospective study investigated clinical toxicity and efficacy of anagrelide during two years of treatment. DESIGN AND METHODS A multicenter, open, phase II study of anagre...

Myelofibrosis (MF) is a rare disorder that classified as one of the myeloproliferative disorders. It BCR-ABL1- negative neoplasm characterized by abnormal proliferation hemopoietic stem cells within bone marrow, which leads to overproduction fibrous tissue. Our patient young girl 17 year old presented with lump in left upper abdomen, shortness breath & generalized swelling. The diagnosis wa...