Abstract

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are a heterogeneous group of clonal hematopoietic stem cell disorders; they are characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis and a predilection to the development of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). For a rapid evaluation of the outcome in myelodysplastic patients non-cytogenetic prognostic scores can be used.

Aim: This study proposed to demonstrate that age and gender are important factors in the outcome of the patients diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome.

Materials and methods: This study was conducted in the Department of Hematology of the Emergency University Hospital Bucharest during October 2008 and October 2012.

Results: Male sex and age higher than 60 years are associated with high risk in the studied cases by using the Spanish prognostic score. According to Goasguen score: male sex and age, patients older than 60 years, present characteristics associated with an intermediate risk. Based on the Dusseldorf score, age over 60 years and female gender were associated with pronounced risk in the examined group. By examining the Bournemouth score in our group, we found that age > 60 years correlated with a higher frequency of risk, but no significant differences regarding the sex of patients were observed.

Conclusions: We concluded that age > 60 years and male gender are important predisposing factors in the survival.

Abbreviations MDS = myelodysplastic syndromes, AML = acute myeloid leukemia, LDH = lactate dehydrogenase, FAB = French-American-British, WHO = World Health Organization, IPSS = International Prognostic Scoring System, ALIP = abnormal localization of immature precursors, WPSS = WHO classification-based prognostic scoring system, FISH = fluorescence in situ hybridization, del = deletion.