Aplastic anemia which was once considered as rare and invariably fatal disease. Over the years the understanding of its pathophysiology, its relationship with constitutional bone marrow failure syndrome and evolution to myelodysplastic syndrome and leukemia has improved. Evolution of standard immunotherapy and bone marrow transplantation has dramatically improved the survival of patients over t...

Fifteen patients with refractory aplastic anemia or agranulocytosis received treatment with recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage-colony-stimulating factor (rhGM-CSF) in doses from 4 to 64 micrograms/kg/d by continuous intravenous (IV) infusion. Ten of 11 evaluable patients with aplastic anemia had substantial increments in granulocytes, monocytes, and eosinophils associated with myeloid and...

INTRODUCTION We report on three cases of visual loss due to nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy that developed during the course of refractory anemia, a subtype of myelodysplastic syndrome. PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients underwent fundus, visual field examination, and fluorescein angiography. A thrombophilic tendency investigation including prothrombin time, partial thromboplastin ...

The JAK2/V617F mutation has been noted in essential thrombocytemia. We investigated 19 cases with refractory anemia with ringed sideroblasts (RARS), including three RARS with thrombocytosis (RARS-T). Only the RARS-T patients showed this mutation. More cases need to be analyzed to determine the prevalence of the JAK2/V617F mutation in RARS-T.

Twenty three Zimbabwean African patients who satisfied the French-American-British(FAB) diagnostic criteria for the myelodysplastic syndromes(MDS) at Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine, University of Zimbabwe, between July 1985 and June 1987 are presented. The disorders appear not to behave differently from those reported in Caucasian populations with regard to clinical and haematological featu...

BACKGROUND Myelodysplastic syndromes are clonal disorders of stem cells, characterized by heterogeneous clinical presentation. Hematopoiesis is ineffective, characterized by abnormal differentiation, maturation and survival of hematopoietic cells. MATERIAL AND METHODS The examinations were conducted in the Hematology Ward and the Internal Medicine Ward of the Specialist Hospital No. 1 in Byto...

Although myelodysplastic syndromes are heterogeneous disorders comprising a benign subset of bone marrow failure similar to aplastic anemia, no laboratory test has been established to distinguish it from bone marrow failures that can evolve into acute myeloid leukemia. Plasma thrombopoietin levels were measured in 120 patients who had myelodysplastic syndrome with thrombocytopenia (< 100 × 10(9...

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) represent a heterogeneous group of clonal hematologic neoplasms characterized by morphologic dysplasia, aberrant hematopoiesis and peripheral blood refractory cytopenias. MDS is recognized to be associated with an increased risk of symptomatic anemia, infectious complications and bleeding diathesis, as well as a risk of progression to acute myeloid leukemia, part...

The anemia of chronic disease is a prevalent, poorly understood condition that afflicts patients with a wide variety of diseases, including infections, malignancies, and rheumatologic disorders. It is characterized by a blunted erythropoietin response by erythroid precursors, decreased red blood cell survival, and a defect in iron absorption and macrophage iron retention, which interrupts iron ...

By JAN WALDENSTR#{246}M, M.D. T HE TREATMENT of pernicious anemia that is refractory to liver has been one of the most difficult problems in hematology. In many of these cases the result of treatment with liver extracts is excellent for some time and everything seems well. Later the patient responds less and less to antianemic treatment and the final outcome is usually fatal. Before discussing ...