Hello and thank you for sending your question.

Your question is a very good one and I will work on providing you with some information and recommendations.



Most of the time there is no obvious explanation for why someone develops myelodysplasia. This is a disease of the bone marrow which develops primarily in older patients.

There are some risk factors including exposure to chemotherapy but in your case this is certainly not contributory.

The bone marrow constantly changes over time. The rate at which this change occurs is something which is quite variable. In the setting of myelodysplasia generally the bone marrow has difficulty producing adequate amounts of blood cells.

This may develop to the point where transfusion might be needed or medications might be considered. There are specialized tests which are also performed on the bone marrow including chromosome studies which help hematologists decide how to approach the disease.

I suspect that you are already discussing this with your hematologist who might consider appropriate options for you. Very often this is followed over a long period of time.

If at some point in the future you require intervention we do have some therapeutic options.

Again I would recommend that you discuss this with your hematologist at length.

Thank you again for sending your question. Please let me know if you have any additional concerns.

Sincerely,

Dr. Robert

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Hello and thank you for your follow-up question.

Generally a consideration for therapy would revolve around how you feel. In general if you develop signs of fatigue or shortness of breath in the setting of a low red blood cell count or anemia then your doctor might consider using a growth factor to help stimulate the production of your red blood cells. One of the more common growth factors that we use is Epo.

There are some other medications which can be used but this sometimes depends on the results of the bone marrow study. If you have a copy of the bone marrow study and you could send that to me I could tell you some more potential options.

If you could let me know what your hematologist has already discussed with you we could fill in the blanks and answer any additional concerns.

Thanks again for sending your question. Please let me know if you have additional concerns at this time.

Sincerely,

Dr. Robert

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Hello again.

I do not have a direct fax number for you. If possible you could scan the results and send them as an attachment to YYYY@YYYY to my attention.

Thanks again,

Dr Robert

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