Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)– , a potent stimulus of nuclear factorB (NFB), is up-regulated in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Here, we show that bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMCs) and purified CD34 cells from patients with low-grade/early-stage MDS (refractory anemia/refractory anemia with ring sideroblasts [RA/RARS]) have low levels of NFB activity in nuclear extracts comparable with normal...

percentage of blasts, M/E ratio, FAB subtype, but not cyclin E IR, were significantly associated with survival (Table 1). Multivariate analysis showed that IPSS (p=0.0068) and RAEB-t subtype (p=0.001) were independent predictors of survival. Interestingly, when the survival analysis was restricted to the low-risk subset of RA/RARS, the variables of age (p=0.0287), IPSS (p=0.0113) and FAB subtyp...

The myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are clonal stem cell disorders, characterized by ineffective and dysplastic hematopoiesis. The genetic and epigenetic pathways that determine disease stage and progression are largely unknown. In the current study we used gene expression microarray methodology to examine the gene expression differences between normal hematopoietic cells and hematopoietic cell...

TNF-alpha mediated apoptosis of the hematopoietic cells has been thought to contribute to the ineffective hematopoiesis observed in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). The combination of pentoxifylline (P) and ciprofloxacin (C) has been shown to reduce the serum levels of TNF-alpha, and an earlier trial of P and C with dexamethasone (D) provided good palliation for patients with MDS. The purpose of...

Standardized criteria for complete remission (CR) in acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML) require the absence of peripheral blood blasts (PBBs). However, MD Anderson (MDA) criteria for CR (CR-MDA), although including the other requirements for CR, have not included the PBB count. We exploit this difference to assess the effect of PBBs at the time of CR-MDA on relapse-free survival (RFS) time. Eigh...

Standardized criteria for complete remission (CR) in AML require the absence of peripheral blood blasts (PBB). However, M.D. Anderson (MDA) criteria for CR (CRMDA), while including the other requirements for CR, have not included the PBB count. We exploit this difference to assess the effect of PBB at the time of CR-MDA on relapsefree survival (RFS) time. 80% of the 533 patients with newly-diag...

Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract arising in individuals with genetic predisposing factors and abnormalities of the immune system. Myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), an acquired clonal hematologic disorder, is characterized by peripheral blood cytopenia, dysplastic changes in several types of hematopoietic cells of the bone marrow and peripheral b...

The clinical importance of erythroid predominance in bone marrow of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is controversial. These cases represent a heterogeneous group of diseases that historically have been classified into different categories. We studied 313 AML patients and specifically compared the clinical, cytogenetic, and molecular features of cases of AML with erythroid predominanc...

Genetic alterations in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are critical for pathogenesis. We previously showed that peripheral blood cell-free DNA (PBcfDNA) may be more sensitive for genetic/epigenetic analyses than whole bone marrow (BM) cells and mononuclear cells in peripheral blood (PB). Here we analyzed the detailed features of PBcfDNA and its utility in genetic analyses in MDS. The plasma-PBc...