Rheumatic and Autoimmune Diseases May Have a Role in Disease Progression of Myelodysplastic Syndrome

Objective: Myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is a clonal bone marrow disorder that leads to under - production of normal blood cells. It causes dysgenesis of the blood cells. The cause of de novo MDS is not known. About 10% of cases of MDS are secondary, most often due to radiation treatment or chemotherapy for cancer. The role of other diseases observed in the patients and their families is not clear in the progression of MDS. Here, the diseases observed in our series (71 MDS cases and their families) were compared with the normal controls (71 nor - mal cases and their families) to understand the affect of other diseases in the progression of MDS. Material and Methods: Among 71 MDS cases, 29 cases with refractory cytopenia with unilineage dysplasia, one cases with re - fractory anemia with ring sideroblast, 28 cases with refractory cytopenias with multilineage dysplasia, 11 cases with refractory anemia with excess blasts and 2 cases with MDS associated with isolated del (5q) were diagnosed with clinical and laboratory results. The diseases in MDS and the control groups were classified according to gen - eral classifications. Results: The numbers of affected patients in each group represented no significant difference between MDS and the control groups. According to these results, no correlation was found between the other dis - eases and MDS group. As known, some diseases have an accumulation in some families representing genetic pre - disposition. In order to find out the role of such systemic diseases frequently observed in one family, two groups were compared. In this group, the families which had two or more affected cases with the same diagnoses were ac - counted. Twenty six families had similar two or more diseases in MDS group whereas 21 families had similar two or more diseases in the control group. The difference between the MDS group (8 families) and the control group (2 families) which had rheumatic and autoimmune diseases were noticed. The number of affected families in MDS group with rheumatic and autoimmune diseases was greater than the number of affected families in the control group (p = 0.049). Conclusion: Our results may represent the possible role of rheumatic and autoimmune diseases in MDS etiology. Further findings are needed which represent the predisposition of rheumatic and autoimmune conditions in MDS progression.