Proliferative indices, cytogenetics, immunophenotye and other prognostic parameters in myelodysplastic syndromes

Thirty-five adult myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) patients were included in this study: 11 refractory anemia (RA), 4 RA with ring sideroblasts (RARS), 9 RA with excess of blasts (RAEB), 10 RAEB in transformation (RAEB-T) and 1 chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML). The ranges of survival were 4-51 months, 40-59 months, 7-38 months, 5-24 months and 5 days, respectively. Three patients died and 3 showed disease progression during the course of the study. A composite analysis of proliferative indices, cytogenetics, immunophenotype and other conventional/novel prognostic parameters in the context of Indian MDS patients was performed. The proliferative indices (AgNOR and Ki 67 positivity), immunophenotypic markers, serum LDH and ferritin levels revealed wide variations and great overlap among different FAB subtypes. The scoring systems (Bournemouth, Dusseldorf and Goasguen) did not correlate with the prognosis and survival (p > 0.05). Clonal cytogenetic abnormalities were detected in 24/35 (68.57) patients, 8, 5 and 7 being observed commonly. Cytogenetic abnormalities were more frequent in RAEB (88.8), RAEB-T (80.0) and RA (63.6) subtypes of MDS. By Using Muftis prognostic system and International prognostic scoring system (IPSS), a good positive correlation was found between low risk category and RARS with better survival as compared to other risk categories/FAB subtypes (p < 0.01). However, rest of the FAB subtypes were assigned into high, intermediate and low risk categories without any correlation with the survival and/or leukemic transformation. RARS subtype revealed itself as the better prognostic category according to the cytogenetic findings as well as Muftis grading system. This was possible due to the longer follow up available for these patients (40-59 months).