Polycythemia Vera Terminating in Refractory Ascites

Polycythemia Vera Terminating in Refractory Ascites

A 64-year-old woman,with more than a 20 year history of polycythemia vera(PV),developed portal hypertension,myelofibrosis and extramedullary hematopoiesis accompanied by massive ascites. Portal hypertension resulted not only from infiltration of the liver sinusoids by hematopoietic cells but also from nodular regenerative hyperplasia of the liver. Wright-stained smears of ascites samples consis...

Muramidase in polycythemia vera.

Polycythemia vera terminating with myeloblastic leukemia; correlation of morphologic findings with leukocytic phosphatase studies.

Erythropoietin receptors in polycythemia vera.

The role of erythropoietin (EP) in polycythemia vera (PV) is controversial, with some experiments suggesting that erythroid progenitors in PV are exquisitely sensitive to EP and EP dependent, and others suggesting that PV progenitors are EP independent. We have examined the characteristics of the EP receptor (EP-R) on erythroid colony-forming cells (ECFC) from patients with PV. In contrast to n...

Treatment of polycythemia vera.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Current guidelines for the management of patients with polycythemia vera (PV) derive from a few clinical trials and several uncontrolled clinical studies. The purpose of this paper is to critically review the available evidence in literature for selecting the best treatment in the single patient. METHODS The authors have been working in this field contributing origina...