FAQ: General Questions
1. What is Myeloproliferative Disease (MPD)?
Myeloproliferative diseases (MPDs) are a heterogenous group of disorders characterized by cellular proliferation of one or more hematologic cell lines in the peripheral blood, distinct from acute leukemia. MPDs consist of 4 diseases: chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML); polycythemia vera (PV); essential thrombocythemia (ET); Idiopatic Myelofibrosis (IM). MPD may evolve into one of the other myeloproliferative conditions, transform to acute leukemia, or both.
Some evidence indicates that MPDs arise from malignant transformation of a single stem cell. In MPD, one abnormal cell clone that produces several types of blood cells, a so called pluripotential hematopoeitic precursor cells (PHPC) has a growth advantage that allows it to overgrow at the expense of the normal PHPC clones. While this PHPC clone is "abnormal", it is still able to self-renew and to produce several types of blood cells. The cells produced by the abnormal clone may be difficult to distinguish from those produced by normal cells. But what we do have in the myeloproliferative disorders is abnormal over or under production of a particular cell type. Thus MPD involves the improper balance between production of different blood cell types just as much as it involves abnormality of any given blood cell type.
2. Is this cancer?
The myeloproliferative disorders are hematological malignancies but there are no cancerous cells that divide and invade (metastasize).
You may explain your disease to people as a rare bone marrow disease.