Post by Groshan Fabiola
Considered to be a benign illness for years, Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) is nowadays known to pose a serious threat to individuals it affects. Recent studies have revealed that MDS is actually a malignant illness that can further lead to leukemia. Due to this fact, Myelodysplastic Syndrome is also referred to as pre-leukemia illness.
Comparable to leukemia, MDS triggers an overproduction of abnormal blood cells that eventually outnumber their healthy counterparts. The cells involved in causing the illness are known as blasts and they originate in the bone marrow. Dysfunctional blasts multiply at abnormally fast rates and accumulate in the marrow or in the bloodstream. These functionless cells perturb the production of typical blood cells, causing a decrease in the number of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. As a result, men and women who suffer from MDS also have anemia, (due to fewer red blood cells), impaired immune system (due to fewer white blood cells) and experience slow healing (due to fewer platelets).
Several patients diagnosed with MDS are at risk of developing leukemia. In order to block the progression of MDS and to stop the occurrence of leukemia, most patients receive remedies with decitabine, a new drug that is presently under testing.
Even though most patients diagnosed with MDS respond well to remedies with mild chemotherapy drugs and decitabine, they generally experience relapse after completing the prescribed course of medications. MDS has a pronounced recurrent character and regardless of its high curability in the initial stages of the illness, it becomes really challenging to treat in later stages of evolution.
Oncologists have noticed the truth that patients who relapse also grow to be less responsive to second remedies. The precise factors why most patients with MDS fail to respond to re-treatment are still unknown. Even so, this difficulty might be corrected by extending the duration of initial treatments. Medical scientists explain that a single long-term course of chemotherapy drugs and decitabine may possibly offer far better results than frequently repeated shorter remedies. They sustain that by extending the treatment with mild chemotherapy drugs and decitabine beyond the margin of remission, patients with MDS are less likely to relapse. In addition, medical scientists claim that patients who attain remission need to follow ongoing maintenance remedies in order to avoid the recurrence of the illness.
Recently conducted experiments have confirmed the fact that long-term treatments offer far better outcomes than repeated remedies in overcoming MDS. Patients who receive short-term remedies not only encounter relapse, but they are also a lot more exposed to developing acute leukemia and other severe forms of blood cancer. In order to prevent this from happening, an extended low-dose initial treatment with decitabine followed by maintenance treatments may be the greatest alternative for patients diagnosed with MDS.
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