How quickly does myelofibrosis progress?

How quickly does myelofibrosis progress?

We have some patients who have lower risk disease who may progress slowly over time, may have more indolent disease with median survival upwards of, you know, a decade. There are patients who have higher risk disease with higher risk mutations, more blasts or leukemia, immature type cells in their bone marrow. And those patients tend to progress more quickly. And so, the progression of this disease really does depend on the individual patients and their risk factors. But I think for all patients and what I do in my practice, when patients come to clinic, we really do sit down. We look at all of the variables, all the information, and we figure out where the patient falls within this category of risk.

In general, approximately 20% of patients will develop acute leukemia at ten years when you have myelofibrosis. However, some patients develop a lot more quickly and some a lot more slowly. And that really depends on the mutations and how unstable those stem cells are. So that's why we use those prognostic scoring calculators to help us, better prognosticate.