by Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter

About 40 percent of patients with lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (LR-MDS) die of MDS within five years, according to a study published online Nov. 6 in the British Journal of Haematology.

Krzysztof Mądry, M.D., from Warszawa Medical University in Warsaw, Poland, and colleagues prospectively collected data on patients with LR-MDS in the European MDS registry from 2008 to 2019 to examine the associations among disease characteristics, clinical interventions, and causes of death (CoDs). Relative survival (RS) was estimated using national life tables.

The researchers found that 900 of the 2,396 evaluated patients died (median overall survival [OS], 4.7 years). Acute myeloid leukemia/MDS, infection, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) were the most common CoDs (20.1, 17.8, and 9.8 percent, respectively). A higher risk for fatal CVD was seen for patients with isolated del(5q) and with red cell transfusion needed during the disease course. The five-year OS and five-year RS were 47.3 and 59.6 percent, respectively, indicating that most patients died due to MDS. The likelihood of dying from competing causes was increased for older patients (aged older than 80 years) and the lowest-risk patients.

"Although RS is relatively high during the first year (94.3 percent), it decreases to 59.6 percent after five years," the authors write. "This implies that greater than 40 percent of patients with LR-MDS die from MDS-related causes, either directly or indirectly, within five years of diagnosis."

More information: Krzysztof Mądry et al, Cause of death and excess mortality in patients with lower‐risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS): A report from the European MDS registry, British Journal of Haematology (2022). DOI: 10.1111/bjh.18542

Journal information: British Journal of Haematology 

2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.