ABSTRACT
Management of higher-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (HR-MDS) is challenging in the real world. We studied 200 patients with HR-MDS within a large US community hospital network. We describe the clinical presentation, patient-related factors, prognostic characteristics, treatment patterns, clinical outcomes and resource utilization. Patients with HR-MDS, treated in our community setting, were elderly (median age 76 years) with a high comorbidity burden. First-line therapy was hypomethylating agent (HMA) monotherapy (20%), lenalidomide (2%), and venetoclax (2%), while the rest were treated with supportive care. Sixty-one percent of the 200, were subsequently hospitalized within 6 months of initial diagnosis. Overall survival was 11.8 months. Curative transplantation was infrequent, HMA-based therapy was underutilized, responses were not durable, most patients became transfusion-dependent or transformed to AML, and resource utilization was substantial and was highly correlated with total in-hospital days. There is a clear unmet need for tolerable treatments that can produce durable remissions in this population.
