Hi Wattle,
Many members have alredy told you that you
have to ask for the results from the examinations – blood work and all other examinations. You perhaps have to write and ask for a copy of your report with all laboratory results etc.
No doctor can ignore a written inquiry of information.
There are special criteria that have to be fulfilled to diagnose MDS. Here is short info from page 35 in a long article:
Minimal Diagnostic Criteria in MDS
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A. Prerequisite Criteria
- Constant cytopenia (few cells) in one or more of the following cell lineages: erythroid (hemoglobin <11 g/dL); neutrophilic (a kind of white blood cells) (ANC < 1,500/µL) or megakaryocytic (platelets <100,000/µL)
- Exclusion of all other hematopoietic or non-hematopoietic disorders as primary reason for cytopenia/dysplasia
B. MDS-related (Decisive) Criteria
- Dysplasia in at least 10% of all cells in one of the follwing lineages in the bone marrow smear: erythroid; neutrophilic; or megakaryocytic or >15% ringed sideroblasts (iron stain)
- 5-19% blast cells in bone marrow smears
- Typical chromosomal abnormality (by conventional karyotyping or FISH)
C. Co-criteria (for patients fulfilling A but not B, and otherwise show typical clinical features, e.g. macrocytic transfusion-dependent anemia)
- Abnormal phenotype of bone marrow cells clearly indicative of a monoclonal
population of erythroid or/and myeloid cells, determined by flow cytometry
- Clear molecular signs of a monoclonal cell population in HUMARA assay,
gene chip profiling, or point mutation analysis (e.g. RAS mutations)
- Markedly and persistently reduced colony-formation (+/- cluster formation) of bone marrow or/and circulating progenitor cells (CFU-assay)
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I have understood that your hemoglobin was 131
but you have not written anything about the white blood cells (and specially the neutrophilic white blood cells
) ot the platelets
. If the neutrophilic white blood cells and the platelets are OK then you don´t fulfil the prerequisite criteria for MDS
.
This article is long but very important for MDS patients:
http://www.hematologics.com/pdf/ref36.pdf
You can mail to me if you want to get an explanation of difficult words.
Kind regards
Birgitta
68 yo, MDS intermideate-1 dx May 2006, transfusion dependent, Neupogen 2 injections/w, Prednisolone 5 mg/day.