Can Essential thrombocythemia lead to leukemia?
Essential thrombocytopenia can transform into a type of leukemia called Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML) but only a small percentage of patients do so. I looked it up on some journals and found the percentages given ranged from 0.5 to less than 5% with the average time in between ET to developing AML about 13.5 years. ET can be controlled with cytoreductive drugs ie to decrease the number of platelets and some patients may be given Asprin to thin out the blood and decrease the probablity of clot formation. It seems that 2 types of patients are at a higher risk of developing AML: the untreated patients and patients on more than 1 cytoreductive drug (However they aren’t sure if it’s the combined effect of drugs that encourage the development of AML or if it’s simply just a reflection of a more agressive form of the disease) Hmm…hope that helps!!
