How Often Should You See Your MPN Doctor?
How Often Should You See Your MPN Doctor? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
Dr. Laura Michaelis discusses how frequently patients with essential thrombocythemia (ET), polycythemia vera (PV) and myelofibrosis (MF) should visit their doctor.
Dr. Laura Michaelis is hematologist specializing in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) at Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin, where she also serves as Associate Professor of Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Michaelis here.
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Transcript:
Dr. Michaelis:
So, the regular follow-up for myeloproliferative neoplasms, whether that is somebody with ET, PV, or myelofibrosis, is incredibly variable. It depends on the risk stratification. It depends on how frequently you’re needing intervention.
For example, somebody with low-risk polycythemia vera whose hematocrit is elevated and gets a phlebotomy – that person I follow relatively frequently.
Maybe every month or so until I know for sure that the phlebotomy frequency, the number of times we are removing blood, and the frequency, the rate at which that happens, is adequate to ensure that that person is not spending too much time with a hematocrit of over 45 percent.
We know that because randomized trials have shown that a hematocrit over 45 percent leads to an increased risk for bad clinical outcomes.
So, early on in that person’s trajectory, I might check their blood counts more often. Once I know that they are stable and can go longer periods of time, we can relax that out. And that may happen, for example, when they become iron deficient, and the need for phlebotomies decreases.
In somebody with essential thrombocythemia that’s well controlled, again, one might do blood counts every three months or maybe, if things are very stable, every six months.
This is something that I usually make sure that I’m following the national guidelines on and that I adjust from a patient standpoint. If somebody is seeing their PCP in three months and getting blood counts, and things have been stable, then there’s no reason to see more frequently.
Now, when do I see people more frequently? For example, if they’ve started a new treatment, and we want to make sure that their kidneys and liver are doing okay. If I’ve noticed a change in one of their organ functions on the basis of something and do a little tweaking of their medicines, then I might see them more frequently.
So, again, there’s no set-in stone. This is part of the art of medicine, and you wanna talk with your doctor about what you should expect and who’s gonna be following up on the tests that are drawn.
