Cytogenetic study of 145 myelodysplastic syndromes from India
Myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) represents a group of clonal haematological disorders characterized by progressive cytopenia reflecting defects in erythroid, myeloid and megakaryocytic maturation. The incidence of MDS is more in older age group . However the studies on MDS from India are meager. First time we have studied cytogenetic and other etiological factors in 145 patients with MDS. The mean age of MDS in our series was 43.01+ 0.4 and more than 50% patients were below 45 years age group. The MDS subgroup according to FAB in our series were RA (23.44%), RAEB (29.65%), RAEBt (33.79%), CMMoL (6.89%), RARS (6.21%). Cytogenetic study using GTG-banding and Florescence in situ hybridization (FISH) from Bone marrow cells (BM) revealed 37.24% clonal chromosome abnormalities. A high frequency of chromosomal abnormalities detected in RA (27.78%), RAEB (29.63%), RAEBt (31.48%). The monosomy 5 (29.63%) and monosomy 7 (33.33%) were frequent chromosomal abnormalities and the variant chromosome aberrations detected in RAEBt (11.11%) subgroup. The spontaneous chromosomal breakage was also noticed in BM cells of 8(5.52%) patients. We have also carried out chromosomal breakage study from peripheral blood cultures induced with Mitomycine C (MMC) in 60 MDS patients. A significantly (p<0.001) high frequency of chromosomal breakage was detected in 40 (66.6%) MDS patients compared to controls. Our results suggests that the chromosomal instability leads to multiple defects resulting in the clonal chromosomal anomalies as disease progresses.