Clinical Outcome of Patients Diagnosed with Myelodysplastic Syndrome-Unclassifiable (MDS-U): Single Center Experience

Background:The 2008 World Health Organization (WHO) developed a new classification system for Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS). The well-defined categories are refractory anaemia with excess blasts (type 1 or 2 based on the marrow blast count being below or above 10%), refractory anaemia with or without ringed sideroblasts, refractory cytopenias with multilineage dysplasia and myelodysplastic syndromes with isolated deleted 5q. MDS cases that do not meet the diagnostic criteria of the above categories are classified myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS-U). However, few reports in the literature exist in terms of natural progression and clinical outcome of patients with MDS-U.

Aim: To study the clinical outcome of patients with MDS-U.

Method: A retrospective, IRB-approved, single-institution study through chart review of cases with MDS at Mayo Clinic Rochester between 1993 and 2014 was performed. Patients diagnosed with MDS based on WHO classification were included. MDS classification was based on routine Mayo Clinic pathology reports. Central independent hematopathology review for bone marrow biopsy was performed for cases diagnosed with MDS-U or simply generic MDS. Comparison between groups’ medians was done using Wilcoxon test, while survival estimates were calculated using Kaplan-Meier curves using JMP V10.

Result: A total of 802 patients, who met WHO criteria for MDS, were studied. Median age was 71 years (range, 18-99), 69% were males. Median white blood cell (WBC) 3.6 x10⁹, hemoglobin (Hbg) 9.6 g/dl, platelets (PLT) 105 x10⁹, peripheral blood (PB) blasts 0% and bone marrow (BM) blasts 2%. Median overall survival (OS) was 28 months. One hundred nine (14%) cases transformed to AML. Out of the 802 patients, 90 (11%) patients were initially classified as MDS-U according to 2008 WHO criteria, 69% were males with median age 71 years. Upon pathology review, only 42/90 cases (47%) were confirmed to be MDS-U (group 1). Among 47 cases not meeting MDS-U, 40% were best classified as RARS, 17% refractory anemia, and 9% as 5Q del Syndrome, while 2 cases did not have any myeloid neoplasm.

Group 1 had median WBC 3 x10⁹, Hbg 9.9g/dL, PLT 71 x10⁹, PB blasts 0% and BM blasts 0%. IPSS grouping was low, intermediate-1, intermediate-2 and high in 27%, 52%, 21% and 0%, respectively. R-IPSS grouping was very low, low, intermediate, high and very high in 15%, 42%, 15%, 21% and 6%, respectively. Median OS in group 1 was 68, 37, 13 and 0 months per IPSS (p=0.04), and 101, 44, 14, 11, 13 months per IPSS-R (p=0.005), respectively. Of the 43 patients with MDS-U, 39 had follow-up; 21 patients (54%) of which progressed. MDS-U became 42% RAEB, 24% RCMD, 14% CMML, 5% RARS, 10% MDS/MPN, and 5% atypical. Group 2 (MDS other than MDS-U) 759 patients had median age 71 years, 69% were males. They had WBC 3.6 x10⁹, Hbg 9.6g/dL, PLT 107 x10⁹(p=0.01), PB blasts 0% and BM blasts 0%. IPSS grouping was low, intermediate-1, intermediate-2 and high in 29%, 44%, 22% and 5% respectively. R-IPSS grouping was very low, low, intermediate, high and very high in 17%, 32%, 20%, 17% and 14% respectively. On comparison between Group 1 vs 2, mOS was 27 vs 29 months (p=0.7), and percentage transformed to AML 14% in both groups. On multivariate analysis for mOS only age, IPSS-R and IPSS but not MDS-U nor gender were statistically significant.

Conclusion: MDS-Uis a small subset of MDS. With independent pathology review, half of the MDS-U cases were subclassified into other MDS groups. In follow-up more than half of the cases were subclassified into other MDS groups and some were non-MDS. IPSS and IPSS-R are helpful tools for survival assessment in MDS-U. High risk MDS was infrequent in MDS-U per IPSS. We found no significant difference in mOS nor AML transformation when comparing MDS-U to other groups.