Tag Archive for: secondary Myelofibrosis

Primary vs Secondary Myelofibrosis | What’s the Difference?

/in , , , , , /by

Primary vs Secondary Myelofibrosis | What’s the Difference? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

How are primary myelofibrosis and secondary myelofibrosis defined? Expert Dr. Gabriela Hobbs explains the differences between the conditions and discusses a common scenario that secondary myelofibrosis patients often experience. 

Dr. Gabriela Hobbs is a hematology-oncology physician specializing in the care of patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN), chronic myeloid leukemia and leukemia. Dr. Hobbs serves as clinical director of the adult leukemia service at Massachusetts General Hospital. Learn more about Dr. Gaby Hobbs.

Download Resource Guide

See More from Evolve Myelofibrosis

Related Resources:

Is Stem Cell Transplant the Only Curative Option for Myelofibrosis?

Is Stem Cell Transplant the Only Curative Option for Myelofibrosis? 

Evolving Myelofibrosis Treatment Options: What You Should Know

 What Are the Currently Approved Myelofibrosis Therapies?

What Are the Currently Approved Myelofibrosis Therapies?

Transcript:

Katherine:

There may be some confusion, Dr. Hobbs, among people wondering what is the difference between primary and secondary myelofibrosis? Could you describe the differences?  

Dr. Hobbs:

Sure. Great question. So, that term, primary and secondary, is actually used in medicine very frequently for the description of many conditions that are not that different. So, primary means a patient has myelofibrosis and did not have any myeloproliferative neoplasm, or MPN, before their diagnosis.  

So, they went to the doctor and the first diagnosis they received was a diagnosis of myelofibrosis. Now sometimes we suspect that a patient may have had another MPN previously, such as essential thrombocythemia or polycythemia vera, but they just weren’t diagnosed.   

What I mean by that is, you know, let’s say you meet a patient and you look through their chart and you see that five years ago or 10 years ago, they had really, really high platelets or very high red blood cell numbers. So, there you could say, well, you know, you were never diagnosed with ET or PV, but maybe you had that.

So, you probably have secondary myelofibrosis, but the diagnosis, you know, that you come with to the doctor is myelofibrosis. So, secondary myelofibrosis means that you had an underlying condition before, meaning you were first diagnosed with one condition like PV, polycythemia vera, or ET, and then those conditions turned into myelofibrosis.  

And then we call that secondary myelofibrosis, meaning it is secondary to the primary condition, meaning ET or PV. One area of confusion that I’d like to be able to clarify also related to this is if a person has secondary myelofibrosis, they don’t have two myeloproliferative neoplasms or two conditions. It is one and the same. They just live on a spectrum and over time, they can turn into, one into the other. So, it’s not that you now have two diagnoses, it’s still the same condition, it’s just morphed a little.  

Primary vs. Secondary Myelofibrosis: What’s the Difference?

/in , , , , , , , /by

Primary vs. Secondary Myelofibrosis: What’s the Difference? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Are primary and secondary myelofibrosis different? Dr. Joseph Scandura, a specialist in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs), explains the diagnoses and shares insight into each type.

Dr. Joseph Scandura is Associate Professor of Medicine and Scientific Director of the Silver MPN Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Scandura, here.

Related Programs

COVID-19 Vaccination: What Do Myelofibrosis Patients Need to Know?

Expert Perspective: Promising Myelofibrosis Treatment Research

What’s YOUR Role in Making Myelofibrosis Treatment Decisions?

Transcript

Katherine Banwell:

Dr. Scandura, would you start by introducing yourself?  

Dr. Scandura:

Sure. My name’s Joe Scandura. I’m an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. I’m a physician scientist. My laboratory studies blood formation, normal and malignant, and clinically I treat people with  myeloid neoplasms, particularly, and myeloproliferative neoplasms.  

Katherine Banwell:

Would you define myelofibrosis for us, and also provide an explanation of primary versus secondary myelofibrosis? 

Dr. Scandura:

Sure. Myelofibrosis is in the class of diseases called myeloproliferative neoplasms. And, really, its sort of marker feature is scarring in the bone marrow.  

Clinically, this comes along most commonly and fairly universally with anemia, and there can be abnormalities of both the white blood cell count and the platelet count, sometimes, often in the beginning, being too high. And then they can also become too low. 

It tends to be a progressive disease, or on the face on which it progresses is different in different people and there are a variety of different features that can go along with risk. But every individual, of course, is individual.  

A primary myelofibrosis is what we refer to when the diagnosis is made and there’s no antecedent, there’s no precursor malignancy. And so, you come in and the diagnosis is myelofibrosis, and we can’t find anything that came before it.  

Secondary myelofibrosis is what we refer to when somebody has another blood disorder, usually essential thrombocythemia or polycythemia vera, and in a small subset of these patients, the disease can change, what we call evolve or progress into a fibrotic phenotype or associated with the marrow scarring, and a lot of the features of myelofibrosis. Although there are some subtle differences between primary and secondary, they’re more similar than different in terms of their clinical features and how we treat them.