Hi Dick,
The results for WBC and HGB are low but nothing to worry about. How are your
platelets (thrombocytes)
- you know low platelets can make you bleed.
When your doctor talks about Procrit he means a drug that stimulates the RBC:s (like Aranesp) - that kind of drugs give the best results in patients with a
serumEPO less than 500. You should ask for the result of that test.
Then you should ask about
chromosome defects – 75 % of patients with loss of a small part of chromosome 5 respond well to Revlimid.
About Revlimid (lenalidomid)
”Recently, researchers have discovered that some people with MDS respond very well to a drug called lenalidomide. Three-quarters of patients whose MDS is characterized by the loss of a small part of Chromosome 5 need fewer blood transfusions after being given lenalidomide but only a quarter of people without this chromosomal defect respond to the drug.
Unfortunately, most patients with MDS do not have this chromosome abnormality and there is no way to predict which of these patients are likely to respond to lenalidomide. Lenalidomide is a toxic drug that damages white blood cells and platelets, so it is important not to give it to people who might not benefit.
In this study, the researchers have used gene expression profiling (a technique that catalogs all the genes expressed by a cell) to try to develop a way of predicting who will respond to lenalidomide...
...The erythroid specificity of the lenalidomide response signature is consistent with the biology of the 5q− syndrome in MDS.
Patients with the 5q− syndrome have a severe anemia, a normal or elevated platelet count, and a relatively preserved neutrophil count.
The gene or genes on Chromosome 5q that block erythroid differentiation have not been identified.
Our gene expression data indicate that lenalidomide–responsive MDS patients lacking 5q deletions have a defect in erythroid differentiation analogous to the ineffective erythropoiesis in patients with 5q deletions, indicating a possible commonality in the molecular basis of MDS in patients who respond to lenalidomide...”
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/per...l.pmed.0050035
Good luck with your learning
Birgitta-A