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Improving the prognostic evaluation of patients with lower risk myelodysplastic syndromes

Leukemia volume 23, pages 182–184 (2009)Cite this article

With great interest we read the recent paper by Garcia-Manero et al.1 who proposed a new prognostic score for patients with lower risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). We agree that it is important to identify within the group of patients with low-risk and int-1-risk MDS (according to International Prognostic Scoring System (IPSS)2) those who actually have an inferior prognosis and, thus, should receive early treatment. This necessity has become of particular importance during the recent years due to the availability of new drugs and the improved tolerability of the current transplantation protocols.

To identify confounding factors in Garcia-Manero's new score and the reasons for its inferior performance in our patient cohort, we looked at the variables included. An improvement of the new score, when compared to the IPSS, is the inclusion of hemoglobin and platelets only, as the absolute neutrophil count is not an independent prognostic parameter. The new cut-off value of 4% bone marrow blasts is interesting but should be further evaluated. In patients from our registry we could not find a significant influence on survival. This might be due to the small number of patients (12%) concerned.

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  1. Department of Hematology, Oncology, and Clinical Immunology Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany

    A Kuendgen, N Gattermann & U Germing

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  1. A Kuendgen
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  2. N Gattermann
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  3. U Germing
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Correspondence to A Kuendgen.

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Kuendgen, A., Gattermann, N. & Germing, U. Improving the prognostic evaluation of patients with lower risk myelodysplastic syndromes. Leukemia 23, 182–184 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/leu.2008.153

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