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Originally Posted by Neil Cuadra
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Its 31.00 bucks to read that paper.
They did a large survey to see how median survival times for MDS patients changed over the decades. The most significant trend they found was that for patients with more than 5% blasts in the bone marrow who did not have an allogeneic transplant, median survival times was 50% higher in the last decade compared with the preceding two decades. This improvement applied to all age groups. The difference can be explained by the availability of new treatments and perhaps the increased success of transplants.
Can you tell us what treatments increased survival times by 50 %?
They found that the prognosis for MDS patients with at less than 5% blasts did not change significantly over the same time period, presumably because treatment approaches such as supportive care for patients with low-risk MDS haven't changed as much over the years
it became obvious to me that a lot of scientists have become frustrated by the lack of progress they've made in the last 30 years. This is further supported by the accuracy of the prognostic scoring technique developed 20 years ago. Its still quite accurate but doesn't account for demethylators that might add a few months. Perhaps that's why SCT gets a lot more attention, a bit more progress and more encompassing then a cure for the rare MDS. Rare diseases not much $$ to be made by big pharma.