A guide to risk assessment in the primary myelodysplastic syndrome

The heterogeneity of primary myelodysplastic syndromes, the concentrated efforts of discerning their multistep pathogenesis, and the availability of recombinant hemopoietic growth factors have made these diseases a focus for clinical and scientific research. In order to compare therapeutic modalities in these clinically diverse diseases it is essential to select relatively homogeneous groups of patients based on easily available prognostic features. A guide to risk assessment is outlined in this article with a view to answering the question, "Whom should we treat and when?"