Cytogenetic Analysis And Fish In The Evaluation Of Patients With Mds: A Retrospective Analysis Of Concordance Rate, Utility And Benefit Of Performing Both Studies Simultaneously

Background: The Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are hematopoietic stem cell disorders, characterized by cytopenia, and risk of progression to acute leukemia. Chromosomal abnormalities are detected in 40–60%of patients with MDS. Cytogenetic findings are critical for diagnosis, prognosis and monitoring therapy. FISH has been reported to detect occult clonal abnormalities in 15–7.8% of karotypically normal patients in some studies, but found to be of limited value in others. We sought to evaluate whether FISH can be a valuable diagnostic/prognostic adjunct to conventional cytogenetic (CC) analysis.