(40) Chronic myeloproliferative disorders Flashcards
What are chronic myeloproliferative disorders?
Malignant clonal stem cell disorders of the bone marrow
Name 3 types of chronic myeloproliferative disorders?
- polycythaemia vera
- essential thrombocytosis
- idiopathic myelofibrosis
What occurs in 10% of chronic myeloproliferative disorders?
Transformation acute leukaemia
Name 3 types of blood cells that a stem cell can dvidid into?
- erythrocytes (red cells)
- megakaryocytes (platelets)
- granulocytes (neutrophils, eosinophils, basophils)
What do you get in polycythaemia vera?
Increased red cells +/- neutrophils +/- platelets
What must you distinguish polycythaemia vera from?
Secondary polycythaemias and relative polycythaemia
What do you get in essential thrombocythaemia?
Increased platelets
What must you distinguish essential thrombocythaemia from?
Reactive thrombocytosis
What do you get in myelofibrosis?
Variable cytopenias with a large spleen
Bone marrow fibrosis and decreased red cells/white cells/platelets
What must you distinguish myelofibrosis from?
Other causes of splenomegaly
At what age does polycythaemia vera occur?
All ages but peak at 50-70 years
What are the symptoms of polycythaemia vera?
Insidious
- aquagenic itching
- plethoric face
- headache
- muzziness
- general malaise
- tinnitus
- peptic ulcer
- gout
- gangrene of the toes
What is the common facial appearance in polycythaemia vera?
Plethoric face (red, ruddy complexion)
In polycythaemia, the itching is aquagenic. What does this mean?
Itching caused by water
What are the signs of polycythaemia vera?
- plethora
- engorged retinal veins
- splenomegaly
What is the Hb/hct level in polycythaemia vera?
Persistently >0.5
What must you distinguish between in PV?
- relative vs. absolute polycythaemia
- primary vs. secondary polycythaemia
When diagnosing PV, what are the 1st line tests?
- FBC
- ferritin
- Epo levels
- UE/LFT
Is polycythaemia vera primary or secondary polycythaemia?
Primary polycythaemia
Secondary polycythaemia might be due to what?
- central hypoxic process
- chronic lung disease
- right-to-left shunts heart disease
- CO poisoning
- smoker
- high altitude
- renal disease
- EPO production tumours
- drug associated
- treatment with androgen preparations
- postrenal transplant erythrocytosis
- congenital
- high oxygen-affinity haemoglobin
- erythropoeitin receptor-mediated
- idiopathic erythrocytosis
What are the 2nd line tests for PV when epo is elevated?
- CXR
- ABG
- USS abdomen
What are the 2nd line tests for PV when epo is normal or low?
- JAK2 mutation
- bone marrow examination
- EXON12 mutation
What are Janus Kinases (JAK)?
A family of intracellular, nonreceptor tyrosine kinases that transduce cytokine-mediated signals via the JAK-STAT pathway
How many JAKs are there?
4
- JAK1
- JAK2
- JAK3
- TYK2
JAK is the signally pathway for what?
Cytokine receptors (GM-CSF, GCSF, EPO, TPO, SCF, interleukins)
Describe the function of JAK tyrosine kinases
Since members of the type I and type II cytokine receptor families possess no catalytic kinase activity, they rely on the JAK family of tyrosine kinases to phosphorylate and activate downstream proteins involved in their signal transduction pathways. The receptors exist as paired polypeptides, thus exhibiting two intracellular signal-transducing domains
Describe the JAK2 mutation in myeloproliferative disorders
- occurs in the JH2 domain (inactive)
- G to T mutation at nucleotide 1849
- phenylalanine for valine at 617 in protein V617F
- destroys a BsaXI site
- patients may be heterozygous or homozygous
The presence of a JAK2 V617F mutation in peripheral blood DNA is what?
Diagnostic of a myeloproliferative disorder
How is the JAK2 V617F mutation tested for?
- allele specific DNA-based PCR
- control PCR in same reaction for normal gene
- possible results:-
- normal control band only
- mutant + control band
- no bands or mutant only = inadequate material
How often the JAK2 V617F mutation occur in the 3 myeloproliferative disorders?
PRV = 97% ET = 57% IMF = 50%
How is polycythaemia vera treated?
- venesections aiming for HCT less than 0.45
- aspirin 75mg daily
What is a venesection?
The removal of a volume of blood as a treatment for certain blood disorders
What is HCT (haematocrit)?
the proportion of your total blood volume that is composed of red blood cell
What is the prognosis for polycythaemia vera?
- good prognosis (15 year median survival)
- risk of developing AML
- risk of developing myelofibrosis
What are the 2 types of thrombocytosis?
- primary essential thrombocytosis (ET)
- reactive thrombocytosis
What is there a risk of in ET?
Thrombosis