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Hey Nadia!
FISH is good at spotting abnormalities that might not show up in the 20 cells they manually examine for karotype. For example, my Trisomy 8 showed up in FISH before it did in karotype. So, if you had only one del5q out of 20, it might be nice to have FISH on that. It's pretty common to do an MDS panel that includes Chromosomes 5, 7, 8 and maybe some others.
Trisomy 8 is an abnormality pretty common in MDS. It means you have three copies of Chromosome 8, instead of the usual two. There's some debate about whether it's good, bad or mediocre. There are also monosomies -- like the dreaded Monosomy 7. That means you only have one copy of the chromosome, and having only one copy of 7 has an unfavorable prognosis.
Del5(q) or 5q- means the long arm of chromosome 5 is missing. It has a favorable prognosis, because about two-thirds of folks with that abnormality respond to Revlimid. The tricky thing about Revlimid for you is that it tends to initially knock down your platelets, and yours are already pretty low.
I was at NIH last week, collected my Danazol, and am back home. I return in May for follow up.
Take care!
Greg
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Greg, 59, dx MDS RCMD Int-1 03/10, 8+ & Dup1(q21q31). NIH Campath 11/2010. Non-responder. Tiny telomeres. TERT mutation. Danazol at NIH 12/11. TX independent 7/12. Pancreatitis 4/15. 15% blasts 4/16. DX RAEB-2. Beginning Vidaza to prep for MUD STC. Check out my blog at www.greghankins.com
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