RARS with fibrosis and del(20q) transformed into ALL

Transformation of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) into acute myelogenous leukemia occurs in approximately 30 % of cases, while progression into acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is rare. We report on a 67-year-old man with the diagnosis of MDS, subtype refractory anemia with ring sideroblasts (RARS), karyotype 20q- , JAK-2 negative and grade III fibrosis on the bone marrow biopsy, who evolved into ALL 33 months after the diagnosis of MDS. RARS is one of the subtypes of MDS with most indolent course. Deletion of the long arm of chromosome 20 (20q-) is considered as good prognosis by the International Prognostic Scoring System, an important scoring system for predicting survival and evolution of MDS. Primary MDS with bone marrow fibrosis may represent a distinct clinicopathological and is supposed to have an unfavorable prognosis. The combined analysis of these features makes this rare report still more challenging and illustrates that biology of MDS is yet to be discovered.