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Old Sun Nov 13, 2011, 12:54 PM
akita akita is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 110
Vitamin B12 again

Hi David,

as far i have understood you have got a pancytopenia in all three blood-rows.
Also you don`t have chromosomal changes.

You have checked your Vitamin B12 counts two years ago. Supposedly they were in the range.

If your situation is comparable to this of 12 patients reported in a recent korean study, you could have a 26,66 % chance that your blood problems origin from Vitamin B12 deficiency and will significantly improve after administration of parenteral (i.m.) injections of Vitamin B12 1000ng for seven days, within 14 days.

The patients of the korean study who were sucessful with the vitamin B12 supplementation partly had normal vitamin B12 counts in the beginning of the therapy, which worsened later. Furthermore half of the 12 patients always stayed in the normal range!

As the patients did not have a diagnosis for pernicious anemia, the traditional reason to do a therapy with vitamin B12, in this studyVitamin B12 was administered "to confirm the diagnosis and improve the clinical condition of the patient".

(Vitamin B12 (in the form of cyanocobalamin) is - in Europe - free available in the pharmacy. Also oral intake is useful, and a study has proved that 120 days intake of Vitamin B12 - tablets 2000ng /day give the same resultat as the standard injection - procedure). The whole Vitamin B12-problem seems to be very complex, but regarding hematological changes caused by Vitamin B12 - or - which are "Vitamin B12 - responsive" the supplementation is said to be successfull in more than 90 percent.

I will post the recent study in the MDS-Forum, as both, AA and MDS (and AML etc) could probably get confused with Vitamin B12 deficiency.

Good luck!
Kind regards, Margarete
__________________
Margarete, 54, living in Vienna, Austria,
MDS/AML M2, diagnosed 9/2007, then Chemos, aSZT 4/2008, chronic GVHD

Last edited by akita : Sun Nov 13, 2011 at 01:09 PM.
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