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Myelodysplastic syndrome

(In)convenience of adding age and comorbidities to prognostic models in myelodysplastic syndromes

Leukemia volume 32, pages 1264–1266 (2018)Cite this article

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We read with interest the letter from Nazha et al. [1] who assess the prognostic adequacy of adding molecular data along with age to current prognostic models in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). By applying this approach, a slight to moderate enhancement in the survival predictive power of the assessed scores was observed, nevertheless, no improvement was seen in the prediction of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) evolution.

The development of strategies to improve prognostic assessment of patients with MDS is crucial to refine the detection of lower-risk and higher-risk patients. This distinction is essential since the choice of treatment is risk-adapted with current therapeutic strategies ranging from watchful waiting to allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT). In the last years, several scores composed by “disease-related” and “patient-related” variables (e.g., age, comorbidities, performance status, frailty) have been developed [1,2,3,4] but there are some concerns about their suitability for determining which patients should be selected for receiving disease-modifying treatments.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratorio de Citología Hematológica. Servicio de Patología, GRETNHE, IMIM Hospital del Mar Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain

    Xavier Calvo, Lourdes Florensa & Leonor Arenillas

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  1. Xavier Calvo
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  2. Lourdes Florensa
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  3. Leonor Arenillas
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Correspondence to Xavier Calvo.

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Calvo, X., Florensa, L. & Arenillas, L. (In)convenience of adding age and comorbidities to prognostic models in myelodysplastic syndromes. Leukemia 32, 1264–1266 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41375-018-0064-6

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