Elevated mature monocytes in bone marrow accompanied with a higher IPSS-R score predicts a poor prognosis in myelodysplastic syndromes.

BACKGROUND

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) is a group of heterogeneous myeloid clonal diseases originating from hematopoietic stem cells. Clinically, elevated mature monocyte in bone marrow is often observed, but its clinical value still remains unclear.

METHODS

We retrospectively analyzed a cohort of 216 MDS patients to explore the prognostic value of the percentage of mature monocyte in bone marrow (PMMBM). All patients were divided into elevated PMMBM group and the normal group by 6% PMMBM as the cut-off value.

RESULTS

Our results showed that PMMBM> 6% was associated with inferior overall survival (OS) (P = 0.026) along with higher-risk IPSS-R (P = 0.025) and higher frequency of IDH2 mutation (P = 0.007). Multivariate analyses showed that besides older age (> 60 years) for OS, gender (male) for OS, lower neutrophil count (< 0.8 ×  10/L) for OS, higher bone marrow blast percentage (> 5%) for OS and LFS, poorer karyotype for OS, elevated PMMBM was also an independent adverse prognostic factor for OS in MDS (P < 0.0001) but not for LFS (P = 0.736).

CONCLUSIONS

These findings indicate that increased PMMBM may assists Revised International Prognostic Scoring System (IPSS-R) to predict a poor outcome and provide a novel evaluation factor for MDS patients especially when their karyotype analyses fail.