Myelodysplastic syndrome-Advanced symptoms

Myelodysplastic syndrome often changes after 5, 10, or 20 years. It turns into myelofibrosis or leukemia, anemia gets worse, and blood transfusions are needed to survive. Platelet counts are also very low, resulting in bleeding. Some patients turn into acute leukemia in advanced stages, resulting in more severe bleeding, infection, systemic failure, or fever. For such patients, after conversion to leukemia to advanced stage, can be treated with low-dose chemotherapy. Because most of them are elderly, the amount of chemotherapy used for treatment is often relatively low, and normally requires more active care and supportive treatment such as blood transfusion, platelet transfusion, anti-infection.