Knowledge of the blast phenotype in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) would be valuable, as in other malignancies, but remains sparse. This is mainly because MDS blasts are a minor population in clinical samples, making analysis difficult. Thus, for this blast phenotype study, we prepared blast-rich specimens (using a new density centrifugation reagent for harvesting blasts) from blood and marrow ...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is a clonal haematopoietic stem cell disorder characterized by ineffective haematopoiesis and leukaemia progression. Cytogenetic analysis has proven to be a mandatory part of the diagnosis of MDS as well as a major indicator for predicting clinical course and outcome. Studies on cytogenetics of MDS are reported mostly from the West and only...

BACKGROUND In recent years, epidemiologic studies have reported controversial results relating cigarette smoking to myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) risk. A meta-analysis was performed to assess such potential relationship between cigarette smoking and incidence of MDS. METHODS A search of literature published before October 2012 for observational studies evaluating the association between cig...

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDSs) are clonal hematologic disorders that frequently represent an intermediate disease stage before progression to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). As such, study of MDS/AML can provide insight into the mechanisms of neoplastic evolution. In 184 patients with MDS and AML, DNA methylation microarray and high-density single nucleotide polymorphism array (SNP-A) karyotypi...

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...

A case of Di Guglielmo's syndrome passed through the three stages of chronic erythromyelosis, erythroleukemia and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). According to the FAB classification the subsequent stages of this syndrome were refractory anemia (RA), RA with excess of blasts (RAEB), AML-M6, AML-M2 and undifferentiated AML-MO as the end-stage disease. Light- and electronmicroscopice findings on per...

Aplastic anemia (AA) may evolve into clonal diseases like myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and acute myeloblastic leuke¬mia (AML). Monosomy 7 is a poor prognostic chromosomal abnormality commonly associated with therapy related MDS and secondary AML. It has also been associated with leukomogenic transformation in AA. We present here two adult ma¬le patients with acquired severe AA. Both patients ...

Somatic mutation of the N-ras oncogene occurs frequently in de novo acute myeloid leukemia (AML). By virtue of their relation to AML, myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) provide an in vivo model of human leukemogenesis. By using a strategy for analysis of gene mutation based on in vitro amplification of target sequences by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and selective oligonucleotide hybridizat...

Thrombocytopenia is a common, often fatal complication experienced by patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine (decitabine) has been used to treat MDS patients with thrombocytopenia with a response rate of 45-50%. However, the mechanism of its effects on megakaryocytes remains unclear. In the present study, the effect of decitabine on megakaryocyte maturation was in...

As anemia is frequently the main problem in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), we studied the efficacy of human erythropoietin (rhEpo) in stimulating the erythroid lineage in 14 patients, starting with 40 U/kg three times a week and doubling the dose every 6 weeks until a response was observed. The highest doses administered were 80 (n = 1), 160 (n = 4), 320 (n = 8) and 640 U/kg (n = 1). One pati...