Not yet diagnosed but early on-set of AA??
 

Hello all, I am new to this site and I hope I can get some help here. Thank you.

My husband, 51 years old, recently discovered that he had low blood counts across the board. He had done blood transfusion once, and platelet transfusion 4 times. He had also done 1 bone marrow biopsy back in April 2014 and is due to have another one next week (August 5, 2014). His platelet level goes up and down from 10 to 36 during the time period. WBC 3.2, Hemoglobin 7.0. Bone marrow results ruled out all nasty stuff. Cellularity ranges from 5% to 80% with average of 40%. Reticulocyte Count 3.8% (range 0.5% - 2%) high. He used to have low B12 deficiency (2012) but now normal.

His doctor says that if he was forced to make a diagnose now it would be AA. We shivered at the comment as the treatment of ATG or BMT sound so scary.

Oh, another thing, he is otherwise very healthy and feels nothing other than tired occasionally. He exercises 2 hours a day (walk around the block). The reason he went for the blood test was because he had a nasty bruise on his arm back in April.

I guess what we are struggling with is that given that he is healthy and had a pretty healthy bone marrow, does he need to go for the treatment of ATG? The doctor is talking about such treatment as he would refer him to UCSF or Stanford after the 2nd biopsy. By the way, he had referred him to a Stanford doctor who concurred with his local doctor and asked him to wait.

Would appreciate any comments.

Another thing, his Cytogenetics test showed that he has Y chromosome loss on all the 20 cells analyzed.

Feeling healthy can be misleading. I have shown no signs of MDS except my low blood counts and 11 percent blasts (now less than 5 percent). I haven't had any transfusions or anything except Vidaza. I golf regularly (walking the hilly 6 miles) without problem. I am scheduled for a stem cell transplant for August 14th.

I would suggest making sure all his nutritional elements are optimal. Even a low normal b12 serum level can cause hematological problems. A serum b12 needs to be at 500. The ranges used by many labs are out of date and anything below 500 should raise a flag. So find out exactly what the lab result was. It's a good idea to get and keep copies of all labs. You would be amazed at how many things are flagged that the docs don't tell you about.

Do you know the reason for the b12 deficiency? Many times if one has problems with one, there are others that are not optimal.

The other key nutrients, in addition to B12, to check are: Vitamin D, folate, iron, copper and zinc.

Also, look at any med he may be on.

Thank you for the replies. He is going to do another blood draw. I will make sure he will do all the tests.