Marrow Blast Percentage Impact on High-Grade Myelodysplastic Syndrome By the Revised International Prognostic Scoring System

Introduction:

The revised international prognostic scoring system (IPSS-R) for myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is widely accepted and has been validated in multiple studies. Patients with adverse cytogenetics do poorly and that is reflected in this scoring system by having the highest score for cytogenetics; 2 for intermediate, 3 for poor and 4 for very poor. Little is known about the effect of marrow blasts in adverse cytogenetic in the high-grade MDS defined by IPSS-R intermediate (>3), high (>4.5) and very high (>5). The goal is to examine the effect of marrow blast percentage on outcome in patients with adverse cytogenetics that is present in the high-grade MDS.

Methods:

We performed data collection from the Mayo clinic records for patients with confirmed MDS after obtaining appropriate IRB approval. Patients were divided based on their total IPSS-R score and we extracted high-grade MDS cases with intermediate, high and very-high IPSS-R only. Cytogenetics and baseline CBC were available for analysis. We calculated the survival difference in patients with blasts <5% and patient with blasts of 5% to 19% for every group. Survival estimates were calculated by Kaplan-Meier method and compared by log-rank testing using JMP v.13.

Results:

Our database had 1300 patients with confirmed MDS, 41% (N=536) are high-grade MDS. From those, the median age was 70 and 70% were males. Median bone marrow blast was 6% (0-19). Baseline hemoglobin is 9.2 g/dL, WBC 2.7, ANC 1.05, and platelets 69. Their cytogenetics were 1% very good, 31% good, 23% intermediate, 16% poor and 29% very poor. The total IPSS-R groups were 39%,31%, and 30% for the intermediate, high, and very-high groups respectively. The overall survival (OS) for the high-grade MDS with marrow blast <5% was 12.3 months and for patients with marrow blasts ≥5% 11.4 months (P=.4). At each high-grade MDS; intermediate, high and very high, there were no statistically significant differences for patients with marrow blasts below or above 5%. In term of risk of progression to AML, patients with blasts ≥5% were at higher risk of progression compared with <5% (25% vs 10% , P<.001), with no statistically significant difference in term of time-to-AML progression.

Conclusion:

The percentages of bone marrow blasts had no impact on overall survival among patients with high grade MDS. However, patients with ≥5% marrow blasts are at a higher risk for progression to AML.

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