What are the differences between MDS and MPNs?

[huntingonthebluffs]

I understand MDS is not an MPN, but it seems to be more semantics than anything.

From Patient Power per Hetty Carraway, MD, Associate Professor: Dr. Hetty Carraway is an oncologist in Chagrin Falls, Ohio and is affiliated with Cleveland Clinic. She received her medical degree from University of Massachusetts Medical Schoo

“For MDS, there is a requirement that the cells have at least 10% dysplasia in at least one cell line (whereas in MPN there is no criteria for dysplasia to be present),” said Hetty Carraway, MD, MBA, director, Leukemia Program, vice chair, Strategy and Enterprise Development at Taussig Cancer Institute, and professor of medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve.

“Also, in MDS, the marrow space can sometimes be hypo-cellular (rather than hyper), and there are certain mutational profiles that are different/distinct between MDS and MPN,” Dr. Carraway said.

“These two diseases have criteria that make them different, but there are rare occasions where some patients have both an MPN and MDS (which is called MDS/MPN overlap syndrome),” Dr. Carraway said.