Link between Smoking and Blood Disorder Prognosis
December 10, 2013; Posted by: webleed staff
Researchers at Cleveland Clinic have discovered a link between a history of smoking and its impact on the prognosis of patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS).
MDS, which usually presents itself in patients over the age of 60, is a group of diseases (formerly referred to as preleukimia) in which the bone marrow does not produce enough normal blood cells. Though chemotherapy and drug therapies are options for managing the disease, the only cure is a bone marrow transplant.
After conducting gene sequencing, analyzing health records and smoking habits of 151 MDS patients treated at Cleveland Clinic over the last 12 years the analysis revealed that the number of genetic abnormalities increases with age and that the increases were in line with how much someone had smoked.
The abnormalities were caused by a pathogen found in cigarette smoke and impacted how well patients reacted to treatment. The study found tat patients with MDS who smoke don’t live as long as non-smoking patients.
“Patients who smoke aren’t more likely to have [the disease] in advanced stages [at the time of diagnosis] than those who don’t smoke,” Dr. Mikkael Sekeres told cleveland.com. “But because they smoke, they’re more likely to have other health conditions that make it harder to treat MDS.”
Pin-pointing these specific genetic changes in MDS patients may someday lead to drugs manufactured to target those changes.
These findings were presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual conference in New Orleans.
