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[Skittles]

I found out this morning that a fellow cmler that has had cml for over 10 years has recently become very ill and now has been diagnosed with MDS as well?  I have read a older post about myelodysplastic syndromes but am not quite following it. Can Trey or anyone explain how this happens to someone with CML and after so many years?  

Thanks Everyone, Skittles

[Trey]

Without knowing the specifics, it is difficult to answer.  But generally MDS has some opposite symptoms to CML, specifically the low blood counts (low neutrophils, low platelets, maybe low RBCs) that many of us experience after taking TKI drugs.  Some patients have severe low blood counts due to a "damaged marrow" caused by the CML, which make it difficult to stay on the TKI drug.  These side effects of the TKI and CML can be misdiagnosed as MDS by an inexperienced doctor, when in fact the TKI drugs are causing the low blood counts, so that is one possibility.  But if there are chromosome abnormalities associated with MDS, then that is another story, and just bad luck.