MDS Patient & Family Support Group – The MDS patient and family support group at the Stanford Cancer Center will be meeting on Monday, May 17, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m, in Palo Alto, CA. Guest speaker Lisa McGrath from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) will be talking about how patients, family members, and caretakers can access resources in their respective communities. For more information, see the MDS Foundation website.
Myelodysplastic Syndromes: An Update On Diagnosis And…
Side effects of Vidaza (azacitidine) treatment in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) patients may be temporary and can be managed with dose delays, dose reductions, and supportive care according to an analysis published in the European Journal of Hematology.
The authors of the analysis suggest that treating physicians should be aware of potential treatment-associated side effects and measures how to manage them to ensure long-term Vidaza treatment and maximize treatment benefits.
Vidaza is a DNA demethylating agent approved for the treatment…
Scottish Medicines Consortium Does Not Recommend Vidaza For MDS Patients – The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC), the agency that decides which treatments will be funded for patients in Scotland, recently decided not to recommend Vidaza (azacitidine) for adult intermediate-2 or high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) patients who are ineligible for stem cell transplants. Although the SMC recognized Vidaza improved overall survival, they did not consider it beneficial enough to justify the treatment cost. The SMC did not recommend Vidaza for acute…
Eosinophil and basophil levels can be used to give prognoses for myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) patients, according to a study conducted by Austrian and German researchers. Specifically, their study showed high levels of eosinophils and basophils predicted shorter overall survival for intermediate-2 MDS patients.
Eosinophils and basophils are two types of white blood cells that develop and mature in the bone marrow. Eosinophils normally make up about 1 to 6 percent of white blood cells, and basophils compose less than 1…