Myelodysplastic Syndrome, Serum Ferritin Level And Prognosis

OBJECTIVES: To study whether the serum ferritin (SF) levels could predict the prognosis of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) in advance. METHODS: 2m1 of fasting blood-serum before treatment was collected from in each of 43 cases of MDS and the SF levels were measured by the CG-9 11 y Counter. By follow-up observation, the relationship between the prognosis and SF levels was analyzed. RESULTS: The results in this study showed that the SF levels were all increased in different degrees in 43 cases of MDS. The SF levels were over 300j.ig/L in 6 (20.0%) of 30 cases of refractory anemia (RA), 2 (28.6%) of 7 cases of refractory anemia with ring sideroblasts (RAS), 1 (33.3%) of 3 cases of refractory anemia with excess of blasts (RAEB) and all 3 cases (100.0%) of refractory anemia with excess of blasts in transformation (RAEB-T). The rate of transforming to leukemia was 66.7% in 4 of 6 cases of RA over 3 A ~ 300~g/L of SF levels and was 8.3% in 2 of 24 cases of RA under 300 j.tgfL of SF levels, and there had significant difference in 30 cases of RA (X2=6.89, P<0.0 1). CONCLUSION: (1) the SF lev~1s in the patients of MDS are all increased in different degree; (2) The rate of transforming to leukemia in MIDS over 300pg/L of SF levels is higher than that under 300 p.g/L; (3) The SF levels is an effective index to could predict the prognosis of MDS and transform of leukemia from the MDS in advance.